FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS; 



OB, 



WHAT YOU DID JNLOT I^EAR DURING TI\EWAI\ 

FROM 

JANUARY 1861 TO JANUARY 1866. 

A NARRATIVE OF HIS 

Mxavdsj Experiences, anb ©bseruations, 

IN 

TEXAS A^T> MEXICO. 



4/ . i «^ y 



, % ' THOMAS NORTH. 



>J«o^— 



CINCINNATI: 

Elm Street Printing Co., 176 & 178 Elm Street. 

1871. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, 
By THOMAS NORTH, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress. 






PI(^BFiV.CB, 



nr^O conceive the idea, and execute the purpose of making 
j#j^ a book, is, to a modest man, not a little monstrous ; and 
^Si vet, modest or immodest, monstrous or not, the author 
makes his best bow to the reader, and holds himself 
subject to criticism for not making it better. But many are 
running to and fro in the earth, and knowledge is being in- 
creased ; for the runners, are they not making books for the 
million ? And having run somewhat with the runners our- 
eelf, we might as well tell our story of travel too. The story 
is not of sailing round the world with Captain Cook, or any 
other»Sea King. Nor is it one of Orient — of Oriental climes 
or times, or of its discords or chimes, but it is one that per- 
tains to stirring events, in stirring times, in the most stir- 
ring of all stirring climes — America, our own sweet land of 
liberty. 

The Author, in justice to himself, will state that in prepar- 
ing this book for publication, he has been sore pressed for 
time to bring it out with that degree of merit, literary and 
otherwise, that he would have it possess. 

The Eulogium on Hon. Martin P. Sweet, which we offer 
as our prelude, is at once an act of friendship and pleasure, 



iv. PREFACE. 

as well as of justice, to one of such brilliant mental endow- 
ments and genial qualities of heart, and we believe our 
readers will so regard it. Besides, while some may not fully 
appreciate the relevancy of the Eulogy to the residue of 
the book, yet, for himself, the Author sees and feels a species 
of mystical connection between Mr. S. and himself in all his 
travels and experiences in Texas and Mexico. And so 
much the more because of his earnest prophetic endeavor to 
dissuade him from going there. 

With this brief preface, we submit this volume to the 
public eye, hoping to please and interest, promising that we 
will do better next lime, if we ever publish another book. 



GONTEIMTS. 

CHAPTEK L 

PAGE, 

Hon. Martin P. Sweet — Interview with and Eulo- 
giiim 9-29 

CHAPTER II. 
Trip to Galveston — Memphis Gentleman 30-40 

CHAPTER III. 
Social Types — Henry Clay — General Polk 41-44 

CHAPTER IV. 

Voyage Down the Mississippi — Poem on " Varie- 
ties' Theater." 45-50 

CHAPTER V, 

Kew Orleans — Description of — Ocean View of Gal- 
veston — The Island, How Formed — Commercial 
Importance of, etc 51-64 

CHAPTER VI. 

Effect of Climate on Tastes, Apppetites and 
Temper — The Enraged Clergyman — "Renegade 
Americans" — Morals and Religion — Reign of 
Terror— The Robbery 65-70 



VI CONTENTS, 

CHAPTER VII. 

Texas Oath of Office—" Code of Honor"— Duel- 
ing Spirit — Judge Lynch and Horse Thieves — 
The Doctor of Divinity — Conscript Law — " Like 
People, Like Priest" 71-75 

CHAPTEE VIIL 

The Doctor's Prize Ring Illustration — The Weal- 
thy Planteress — The Doctor's Dueling Card — 
Colloquy with the Planteress — The Doctor and 
the Judge — He Challenges the Latter — Shoot- 
ing on Sight — Masonic Reconciliation.. 76-85 

CHAPTER IX, 

Babel of Tongues — Sam Houston — He Comes to 
Galveston to make a Speech — A Committee Wait 
on Him — He Makes a Speech — His Appearance 
On the Balcony of Tremont Hotel 86-91 

CHAPTER X. 

Houston's Speech — Col. Moore's Regiment — Gen- , 
eral Houston's Review of it — Williamson S. Old- 
ham and Judge Campbell. 92-98 

CHAPTER XI. 
Arguments on Secession in Outline 99-101 

CHAPTER XIL 

Texas Never Invaded — Feeling of the People — 
Galveston Retaken — General Sherman and Lt. 
Sherman — Solemn Scene Between Them — Gen- 
eral Magruder and General Hebert 102-113 



CONTENTS. Vll 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The Federal Fleet—" Nicaragua Smith.". 114-117 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Captured Letter — Mrs. E.'s exile — Her Com- 
panions — Lewis and Emma — Lieutenant H 118-154 

CHAPTER XV. 

Lawlessness and Crime — Doctor O. and the Over- 
seer — Doctor F. Assassinated — Capt. Carr and 
Mr. Smythe. 165-161 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Two Days' Meeting — Power of Prejudice — 
The Feast at Our House — Brigadier General M. 
and Staff. 162-166 

CHAPTER XVIL 

rhe Conscript Law — How the Writer Beat It, and 
How at last It Beat Him — Trip to Mexico — 
Matamoras — General Mejia — The Situation — 
Rev. Dr. L. and the Writer — Petitioning Max- 
imilian — Preaching in Varieties* Theater... 167-172 

CHAPTER XVIIL 

More about Texas — Plot against the Writer's Life 
— Pretext for the Attack — Prompt Action of Dep- 
uty Sheriff Hardin — Fear of Secret Assassina- 
tion — Advised to Leave the Place — Went to San 
Antonio — Thence to Mexico — Lost in the Wilds 
of Western Texas— How We Got Out— The Two 
Mexican Rancheros — Gen. F. J. H.— Extradi- 
tion of Don Manuel G. Rejon — Cortinas — The 
Writer's Family Flooded Out in San Antonio — 
They Come to Him in Matamoras 173-182 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Lee's Surrender — Effect on Texas Soldiers — Trip 

to New Orleans — Family Ship North — Writer's 

Return to Texas — He Visits Brenham, Austin, 

San Antonio and New Braunfels — Rev. Josiah 

j Whipple — The Old Woman in Austin What 

Wouldn't Hear the Blue Coat Preach 183-190 

CHAPTER XX. 

Governor Hamilton — The Thirty Neroes— The Old 
German and His Wife — Fight with Indians — 
A Native Texan's Opinion of Germans 191-195 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Texas— Topography, Climate and Products of 196-210 

OLD LETTERS.— Poem. 

Canto 1 21 3-222 

Canto II 223-225 

Canto III 226-231 



FIVE YEilI{S IN TEXAS. 



V 



o>Hc 



CHAPTER I. 

nOH. MARTIN P. S\YF.ET — INTERVIEW WITH, AND 
KULOGIUM. 

N the month of November, i860, shortly after 
the election of Abraham Lincoln to the 
Presidency of the United States, Hon. Mar- 
tin P. Sweet came into the Circuit Clerk's 
Office of Stephenson County, Illinois, where the 
writer was acting- as deputy to the regular Clerk 
— Mr. L. W. Guiteau — and addressing himself 
to us, said : 

" Mr. N., are you busy ? " 

" Not very," we replied. 

** If you can spare the time I would be glad 
of an interview with you at my office." 

Laying aside the pen we went with him, and 
after being seated together in his private room, 
adjoining the main office, he remarked: 



10 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

"Mr. N., I understand you are thinking of 
going to Texas." 

" I am not only thinking of it, Mr. S., but the 
purpose is already fixed to go." » 

" I regret to hear it," he said. 

"Why so, Mr. S.?" 

For a few moments he was silent, his eye 
scanning the figures of the beautiful carpet 
upon the floor; then calmly raising his face and 
fixing his full eyes, that looked nigh unto burst- 
ing, upon us — such was their intense earnest- 
ness, indicating the struggle of soul within, the 
play of emotions, honest and transparent ; and 
holding the gaze upon us, while as yet no word 
from his eloquent lips had broken or changed 
the potent spell thereof — suddenly those eyes suf- 
fused with tears incontinent, the requisite power 
of speech had come, and he replied fervently : 

" You ask why I regret to hear it ; I will tell 
you why. We are friends, and have been friends 
for many a long year, and that, too, on terms of 
more than ordinary meaning, and sacred beyond 
the degrees of worldly friendship. The tie that 
hath bound us, you know, has been that of a 
deep and ardent Christian faith, which, though 
seeming to part asunder at times under the 
severe strain of mutual fault and criticism, pro- 
ducing the while outward non-affiliation, yet 



HON. MARTIN P. SWEET. 11 

the substratum of unity is there, and its broth- 
erly elasticity is too great to be snapped in twain. 
And however far apart the forces of the worlc 
may swing us, on the pendulum of time, still 
the return movement is certain and sure." 

Thus spake a friend. And then, laying his 
hand upon his heart, he proceeded to say : 

" Mr. N., I have loved you " — and pressing 
his heart said — " I have loved you here. It was 
years agone we learned to love each other as 
brother-friends, in earnest truth. You are still 
in my heart, and I believe I am in yours. 
You know my motto — * once in grace, always in 
grace' — once in friendship, always in friendship — 
once in love, always in love. We would not 
change it if we could, and could not if we would. 
I have never turned you out of my heart, never 
can, and never shall. My heart knows and bows 
to no destroying vicissitudes. Our friendship 
has no mere worldly cast, breathing the common 
atmosphere of self-interest, and putting on the 
offensive airs of self-righteousness ; nay, it en- 
dures while witnessing the death-struggles of 
all such moral and social littleness in ourselves 
and in others. 

**And now," continued he, "from these con- 
siderations, permit me to state further why I 
regret your contemplated move. My regard for 



12 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

the personal welfare of yourself and yours is 
too warm and deep, not to regret seeing you float 
to the Southern extreme of American society 
at the present juncture of our National affairs. 

" The loud blast of secession is already heard 
in the South, and I am impressed that the South- 
ern sisterhood of States will unite in a desperate 
effort to dissolve this Union and destroy the 
General Government. And that no renewal of 
compromise effort can save the tremendous 
shock of war, between the North and South, 
that portends in the political heavens. And I 
now feel bound to say to you, though in confi- 
dence, what for wise political reasons I have not 
dared to utter to any political friend, that I 
more than fear — / believe — this Government is 
going to ruin ! Presaging wrath is borne on 
every breeze, and tells of the coming woe ! 

" To me, this is no chimera of an overwrought 
imagination, but the serious, sober tone of des- 
tiny that comes thundering along the pathway 
of nations, and having shattered many nations, 
and buried them in the dust of the sepulchral 
past, no better fate may await ours. God save 
us ! if that be possible ; but it seems otherwise 
to me. 

"And, friend N., if the half of my forebodings 
shall prove historic verity not far in the future, 



HON. MARTIN P. SWEET. 1 3 

•which side the division line do you wish to be 
found? To ask the question, I know is to an- 
swer it. You and I both hail from adjoining 
counties in the old Empire State as our father- 
land, and are now citizens of the Empire State 
of the great Northwest. The one gave us birth, 
and nursed us to the years of early manhood. 
The other is our adopted State, where we have 
reached the strength and vigor of intellectual 
manhood. There we knew and enjoyed the 
blessings of freedom — freedom of opinion and 
of speech. Here the same, and not one degree 
north or south of the same latitude." 

Here our brilliant friend drew a picture of 
suffering, in prospect for ourself and family, so 
vivid as to rival St. Paul's descriptive list of 
hiis own sufferings, by land and by sea, among 
false brethren, among Greeks and barbarians, in 
bonds and imprisonment, which awaited him in 
his journeyings from city to city. 

In that description the writer saw himself 
aerved with a notice from the " Ticket of Leave 
Man," to quit the country in a given number of 
days, or hours, and in default thereof to abide 
the consequences — such as a free passage at sea, 
bound to a plank, or headed up in a barrel, com- 
panion and food for friendly sharks, or other 
monsters of the dark blue deep ; or left, by the 



14 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

mob infuriate, "Looking up a black jack," as 
the chilling parlance of the country expresses it. 
And he saw the secret assassins in the forest 
nightshade, or in some dark and unfrequented 
nook, plotting against his life — saw the dagger 
gleaming in the dark, heard the death-dealing 
cartridge chambered in the revolver or derringer, 
the trial click of the hammer, and the adjust- 
ment of the cap. And then saw them emerge 
from their dark hiding place, and take position 
near the pathway of the unsuspecting passer-by, 
to shoot or strike him down, just when he thinks 
no danger nigh. But failing here, because their 
victim reaches home by a course not in their 
plans, he saw the human bloodhounds lurking 
and skulking about his house, at the midnight 
hour, seeking quiet entrance to his chamber of 
rest. They enter, and there find the doomed 
one at rest with the loved ones, in the uncon- 
scious bliss of sleep, while the moonlight shim- 
mers from the light breeze-waving trees, through 
the open lattice, in fantastic shapes of light and 
shade, upon the chamber wall, just o'er their 
pillowed heads, so soft and so silvery. The 
steel is in the assassin's uplifted hand. Wit- 
nessing angels are moved at the fearful sight, 
and cry out — ''Stay thy hand! and hurt not the 
man ! " but lo, 'tis not the hand of an Abraham 



HON. MARTIN P. SWEET. 1 5 

that holds the deadly knife on high, but of the 
cruel assassin, whose soul communes not with 
angels of good, but is in league with angels of 
evil, who in cooler mood might relent the fiend- 
ish order to strike — if that were possible with 
evil demons — but being now at the mighty on- 
rush, like lightning the fatal blow descends ; the 
warm blood flows, a life ebbs away, and the 
cowardly wretches retreat under cover of night, 
followed by the wails of the widowed wife and 
her helpless children, bereft in a moment of 
husband and father ! 

Thus did Mr. S. picture things on the Southern 
sky, in vividness of eloquent speech, which the 
writer rarely ever heard equaled — not more than 
half a dozen times in his life, at most. His soul 
caught the true image, and his language made 
it seem to one present and real. 

As compared with other men he excelled in 
most of the qualities that constitute a success- 
ful public speaker, or private conversationalist. 
But comparing him with himself, it is difficult 
to determine in which he was the more excel- 
lent. His nature was spontaneous to an exceed- 
ing degree in every capacity and relation of 
life. The absorbing and evolving power of his 
intuitions was so remarkable that a book, heavy 
or light in tone of thought, was mastered by 



1 6 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

him as a mere breakfast spell. Memory was 
ever a faithful sentinel at his mental door, and 
every fresh thought passing its threshold was 
imprisoned there for life. In the more rigid 
sense of the schools he was never, perhaps, a 
systematic student; which might be urged by, 
some as a fault, and the conclusion is logical on I 
general principles. But he was a student, nev- ' 
ertheless, after nature's own style. He was 
nature's own genius, and could not be confined 
to the plots and plans of books — not even the 
books of the law. His soul was too thirsty to 
be slaked with legal waters. It looked up to 
the mountains for irrigation from the gospel 
waters of the Spirit. Once on a time a young 
chip of the law challenged him on his inatten- 
tion to the books, to whom he replied : " There 
are two classes of lawyers : those who make the 
books, or furnish the material for them, and are 
lawyers without them, and those who study the 
books to be lawyers at all." 

As a jury advocate, as a platform speaker, as 
a popular orator on political and. other occasions, 
it is conceded by those who knew him best, pro- 
fessionally and otherwise, that he never had his 
superior, and few if any equals in the whole 
Northwest. Nature had endowed him with a 
voice of surpassing compass* and richness for 



HON. MARTIN P. SWEET. 1/ 

oratorical purposes, and had breathed into his 
great soul a spontaneity of warm impulse and 
thought, to back and animate it, so that, whether 
he spoke in tenor or baritone, or deep basso, 
one always heard a soul-voice from the speaker. 
His whole character, from top to bottom, was 
stratified with moral simplicity and a broad cath- 
olicity of temperament, which, under the guid- 
ance of his comprehensive intellect, brought 
him into rapport with truth wherever found. 
He thought, and felt, and spoke, in veins of en- 
thusiasm, and hence was rather impatient of 
conservative restraint. He always entered his 
appearance against injustice and wrong, in radi- 
cal pioneer style, with a directness of purpose 
that would see the beginning of the end at once. 
He never impressed one with the idea, in his 
public efforts before courts, or juries, or popular 
audiences, that he sought to produce sensational 
effects ; nay, he was always too full of his sub- 
ject for that — so full that some, in envy, or jeal- 
ousy, or ignorance, might write him down a" 
wild enthusiast, and at times a fanatic, because 
he believed the lions in the way, where most 
men feared to travel, could be slain and put 
aside; but we shall not so write him, for we 
know him better, and have a better chart of his 
character. From long personal intimacy with 
2 



1 8 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

him we understand with what generous prod- 
igality nature lavished upon him powers S7ii 
gtncris, and beyond those of most men, and 
above appreciation by the green-eyed few. If 
he were not perfect, as the religious legalist 
counts perfection, and had any marked faults, 
as all great men are said to have, the intelligent 
reader will not fail to appreciate the point when 
we say that peculiar faults, either secret or overt, 
seem quite inseparable from the characters of 
geniuses ; and more, these very faults serve as 
foils of contrast to set off to greater advantage 
and glory their superior excellences, while 
teaching us not to fall down and worship them 
as gods, for they are but men in common with 
other men. 

Mr. S. stood aloof the major portion of his 
life from the technical distinctions and peculiar 
customs of the religious sects, and the more 
strenuous and imposing they were the less real 
fellowship from him. He thought he saw in the 
tone of creeds, old or new, as managed by hu- 
man fallibility, the old " Yoke of bondage " — ■ 
the imposition of tyranny — the reproduction of 
the old spirit of Judaism, in a display of " the 
commandments of men." And yet, in default 
of the grander development of the coming king- 
dom — the one organic headship of Christ, and 



HON. MARTIN P. SWEET. TO 

the one all-pervading, and all-comprehending 
unity, under that headship — he recognized the 
preliminary usefulness of the sects, in keeping 
mankind beating the bush for religious truth, 
and making endeavors toward pure living. 
Hence his motto was : " The seed of the true 
church is scattered among all the sects, and will 
be gathered into one in the fullness of time.'' 

^rom this standpoint he could never regard 
the distinctive features or claims of any existing 
sect as paramount to those of another, or as 
promising to transcend all others, absorbing them 
into a visible, vital oneness, in the final outcome 
of the conflict between modern sects. But be- 
lieving, as a m.atter of the deepest faith with 
him, and the most unquestionably certain teach- 
ing of Christ, and what appeared to most people 
Utopian, that the true church on earth was in- 
tended by its divine Founder to be like its coun- 
terpart in heaven — a vital, visible, organic unity 
— he could not, at any time in his life, long 
yield himself to sectarian embraces. Here is 
the true explanation of the ins and outs that he 
practiced in this direction. When he went in he 
was esteemed just converted. When he went oiit^ 
backslidden and lost — so reckoned the sectarian 
treadmill brother in his case, who failed to pen- 



20 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

etrate below the surface of his character, and did 
not see him as he was, and where he was. 

The truth is, the writer never knew a man in 
whose subjective life the religious element was 
more potential. It was a profound inspiration, 
and the mainspring of his whole life-movements. 
And even when some of those movements be- 
came irregular and tangled from fractures or 
weakness in subordinate machinery, the main- 
spring was there, performing its functions, and 
kept him in motion. In every speech he ever 
made, at the bar, on the stump, or elsewhere, 
this inspiration was in his soul, came up to his 
lips, and gave them their greatest power. 

The most elegant and moving strains of elo- 
quence he ever uttered came from this well- 
spring of the divine within him. It breathed in 
every breath, it toned every word, it warmed 
every impulse, it was the muse of every senti- 
ment, it was the "fourfold chord" of his friend- 
ship; it was the tidal wave of his soul, hurling 
the shore rocks of biting sarcasm and scathing 
invective against evil and wrong. At such times 
his very lips seemed formed by nature for this 
kind of work, and woe betide the luckless man 
against whom he employed them. This divine 
passion gave him *' cloven tongues of fire," and 
made him on occasion a pentecost of eloquence. 



HON. MARTIN P. SWEET. 21 

Congress was the ambition and disappointed 
hope of his life. So with Webster, Clay, and 
Calhoun, in regard to the Presidency of the 
United States. They were said to be too great 
for the position, which, of course, was intended 
as a high political compliment, meritoriously 
given to offset their disappointment. The com- 
pliment belongs with equal propriety to the sub- 
ject of our sketch in his life-long aspirations for 
Congressional honors. 

With his peculiar talents he doubtless would 
have shone more in the popular branch of the 
National Legislature than in the Senate. He 
was, by nature and education, the people's rep- 
resentative. But as a politician, in his own 
interest and for his own ends, he was a failure. 
There were plenty of men, with half his talent, 
that could and did beat him to death at the wheel 
of political fortune. Yet he was a king among 
his peers, though never crowned, but a king 
" for a' that." 

He was the Whig candidate for Congress in 
1844; and to show his popularity, though a 
Whig, and his party, on a strict party vote, in 
the minority by several hundred votes in the 
Congressional District, yet he swept it, and en- 
tered Nauvoo with a majority of between four 
and five hundred votes. But there the vote was 



22 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

solid against him. Joe Smith had a revelation 
the day before that the Mormons must vote for 
the Democratic candidate. And so he was beaten 
by the Mormons, who belonged to no party, but 
were up for bargain and for sale. Mr. S. would 
not soil his honor by making a bid for their vote. 

He was candidate again, in 1850, against the 
Hon. Thompson Campbell. Again he carried the 
district, entering Jo Daviess, his competitor's own 
county, with a majority of between three and four 
hundred votes. But the local feelincr there for 
the home candidate overcame the majority, and 
defeated him again. When it is remembered 
what partisan odds he had to overcome in these 
two contests, amounting to a diversion of a 
thousand or more Democratic votes, and would 
have been triumphantly elected in the one case 
but for the treachery of the Mormons, and in 
the next but for the local feeling in his compet- 
itor's home county, preferring a home candidate, 
with the wholesale bid of Campbell for the abo- 
lition vote in certain localities, touching the 
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; 
we say, taking these things into the account, 
they exhibit the immense power and popularity 
of Mr. S. 

Was he too honest for a politician? Aye, 
that was it. He reposed too much confidence 



HON. MARTIN P. SWEET. 23 

in the professions of political friends. They 
took advantage of confidences ingenuously im- 
parted, and slew him at the gate of triumphal 
entry. And some did it who had eaten bread 
from his professional hands. Such is life in this 
world of strife. Once when the election returns 
revealed their perfidious betrayal of him he 
cried out with a voice that could* be heard from 
far: "Three cheers for Judas Iscariot! hurrah! 
hurrah ! ! hurrah ! ! ! " 

He was a life-long Whig and Republican, and 
did much heavy work for his party, but official 
recompense never came — a marked example of 
the proverbial ingratitude of political parties. 
Others entered into his labors and took his re- 
ward. 

After months of severe suffering with malig- 
nant erysipelas, he paid the debt that all must 
pay, which balanced the books for this world, 
except that the balance sheet, if left unstruck by 
the hand and seal of the death-king, would show 
him a heavy creditor of his country. He died 
during the December term of the Stephenson 
County Circuit Court, A. D. 1864, his Honor, 
Benj. R. Sheldon, presiding. 

The Hon. Thos. J. Turner, a cotemporary of 
the deceased at the bar, arose in Court and said : 

** It is difficult for me to find words to express 



^4 FJfVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

what we all feel on this solemn occasion. Hon. 
Martin P. Sweet is dead. We shall not again 
hear from his lips the burning eloquence that in 
times past has thrilled the court and the bar, 
as he held up to view the enormities of crimes 
which he had been called upon to prosecute; 
or the melting, pathos with which he captivated 
the sympathies of jury and people, while defend- 
ing those he regarded innocent. Few men ever 
possessed that magnetic power which chains an 
audience in a greater degree than did our de- 
parted friend. 

" It is not alone at the bar that he has left his 
impress as a leading mind. In the arena of 
politics, and in the sacred desk, he was alike 
conspicuous. Logical in argument, terrible in 
invective, and quick in repartee, he carried the 
judgments of the jury or an audience. Or fail- 
ing here his quick sympathies and deep pathos 
led them along against the convictions of judg- 
ment. Such was Martin P. Sweet as an orator 
and advocate. A self-made man, he surmounted 
difficulties which would discourage and defeat 
others, and reached a position at the bar second 
to none, and established a reputation as an ora- 
tor of which any man among us might well feel 
proud. 

" But it is not as a public or professional man 



HON. MARTIN P. SWEET. 2$ 

alone that we mourn him to-day. Mr. Sweet 
immigrated to Winnebago County, in this State, 
in the year 1838, where, with his own hands 
and the help of his wife, he erected a comforta- 
ble log-house, and there entered upon that 
chimerical course of life which, at some time or 
other, in the life of almost every lawyer has 
held out the promise of ease, self-culture and 
intellectual enjoyment — the life of a farmer. But 
he soon found that the fieldS' would not yield a 
harvest without incessant toil, and that calves 
and pigs did not spring indigenous from the 
soil. And in 1840 he left his farm and removed 
to Freeport, where he remained, with the excep- 
tion of two or three years he was in the minis- 
try, until his death. 

*'0n opening an office in Freeport he soon 
secured a remunerative practice, and took a first 
rank at the bar throughout the circuit. His 
services were sou ght after wherever important 
cases were to be tried, or legal ability was re- 
quired. Among the traits of character that 
endeared Mr. Sweet to the members of the pro- 
fession were his urbane manners, his nice sense 
of professional honor, and his kind and cour- 
teous bearing toward those who were opposed 
to him. In these respects he has done much to 
elevate the standard of professional ethics. 



26 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

"In private life he was generous and urbane, 
and had many friends, with few if any enemies. 
In his death the bar has lost one of its brightest 
ornaments, the city a good citizen and zealous 
friend,^and the County and State an able defender 
of their rights. For all these we mourn him. 
There is still another circle that mourns him 
with a deeper grief — the charmed circle of home. 
The sorrow which reigns there is too sacred to 
be spoken of in this place. With closed eyes 
and silent lips, all that was mortal of our friend 
sleeps just where he desired his last sleep should 
be, beneath the green sods of this beautiful 
prairie land, which in life he loved so well ; while 
his spirit, we trust, has entered upon higher and 
holier joys, and more sublime pursuits than this 
earth affords. 

" Let us, my brethren of the bar, while our 
eyes are suffused with tears, and our hearts 
bowed with sorrow over his grave, resolve to 
emulate his virtues, to follow his example, and 
avoid and forget his faults — if he had any — so 
that when our work on earth is done, and when 
our names may be mentioned, as the name of our 
departed friend is mentioned to-day, with bated 
breath and choked utterance, it may be said of 
us : ' Our work is finished, it is well done.' " 

In response to Mr. Turner's eulogy the Judge 



HON. MARTIN P. SWEET. 2/ 

said, In substance, that " during the sixteen years 
he had been on the circuit bench he had known 
Mr. Sweet as a member of the bar, and as an 
effective speaker and legal orator he had no 
superior, and at times he was the leading genius, 
outstripping all others in his judicial circuit. 
That it was probable we should' never look upon 
or hear his like again. . The thrilling tones of 
that voice, so powerful, so charming and so elo- 
quent, have died away forever to the natural 
ear, but still we hear the echoes in the chambers 
of the soul. And hereafter, when we think of 
Mr. Sv/eet, it will be in connection with some 
great effort we have heard him make in by-gone 
years, and the sensations we felt then will again 
rush over the soul. Thus will he speak back to 
us from the world of the departed. And to- 
day, while sitting here on this accustomed 
bench, I seem to hear his utterances over again, 
as we all do, but they are more solemn and im- 
pressive because now they have the momentum 
of eternity added to that of time. May we em- 
ulate his virtues and be prepared when our 
change comes." 

During the delivery of the eulogy the Judge 
appeared more deeply moved than he had ever 
been known to be before, on any occasion, and 
the members of the bar fully sympathized. It 



28 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

was a rare occasion for the play of solemn emo- 
tions, and for a grand uprising of the soul to- 
ward God. 

We offer no apology to the reader for prefac- 
inn; our book with the foregoing- eulog^istic sketch 
of our departed friend, and it is presumed none 
is necessary. We are certain of it with the 
friends of Mr. Sweet, who knew him best. And 
if he had enemies that last till now, political or 
otherwise, to such we make our bow in passing, 
and say, rcqitiescat in pace I 

This outline sketch, containing something of 
an analysis of the character and gifts of Mr. S., 
though too brief to be called a biography, is 
extended beyond the limits of our original pur- 
pose, but while justified in our own feelings and 
desires in the matter, we doubt not the glad 
approval of the reader will be given also ; and 
particularly of the profession to which he be- 
longed, and in which he was a star of the first 
magnitude. But aside from a desire to render 
tliis tribute of respect to the fragrant memory 
of departed worth and genius, the writer, with 
modest pretension, would wrest his name from 
further silence of the pen and press, and rob 
oblivion of a name too bright, and too dear to 
friends and relatives to be lost from the public 
eye and ear. 



HON. MARTIN P. SWEET. 2g 

Now the reader may well conclude that the 
eloquent pleadings of such a friend were quite 
sufficient to deter one in the unpropitious situa- 
tion of our country, during the winter of 1860-1, 
from making the rash move — ** Out of the world 
into Texas." The writer can never forget that 
earnest private interview, in the little side office, 
when Mr. S. employed his powers of logic and 
description to maintain the assertion that the 
"irrepressible conflict" was about to reach the 
shocking crisis of civil war between the North 
and South. A decade of years has since passed, 
bearing him away, but his predictions have be- 
come historic verity. The conflict culminated 
in the nc plus idtra of human rage, in which the 
two greatest evils of all time met and struggled 
for the mastery — war and slavery. And because 
war was the greater slavery was wiped out in a 
baptism of blood! And in that baptism the 
grim-visaged evil plucked and sacrificed five or 
six hundred thousand home lilies from the 
"Sunny South" and from the mountains and 
valleys of the North ! 



30 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE TRIP TO GALVESTON. 

^^N the 1 2th day of January, i86i, we left 
I Freeport, Illinois, with our family, for Gal- 
"^ veston, Texas; making that port on the 
Gulf of Mexico the 23d of the same month, 
eleven days on the passage. Galveston lies in 
north latitude, twenty-nine degrees, while Free- 
port is nearly forty-three degrees north, making 
about fourteen degrees difference, or one thou- 
sand miles. The distance traveled by us was 
about eighteen hundred miles. Just before 
leaving Freeport the thermometer had registered 
thirty degrees below zero. In Galveston it was 
as much above zero. A stiff norther' was blow- 
ing the day we landed, and while it was pleasant 
to us, just from a high northern clime, we 
observed that the Galvestonians, as they were 
passing on the streets, had overcoats on, and 
were muffled to the ears, hurrying to their busi- 
ness places and homes with the same shivering 
rapidity that would characterize people in a cli- 



THE TRIP TO GALVESTON. 3 1 

mate where the cold ranged twenty to thirty 
degrees below zero, and a stiff wester' or nor'- 
wester' were beating cold music out of the icy 
keys of the weather. 

We took the Illinois Central Railroad to 
Cairo, thence the fine steamer "Champion," 
Captain Moore. She was afterward transferred 
to the war service of the United States. We 
landed at New Orleans on the 21st of the month, 
which was the day before the vote on Secession 
was to be taken in the State of Louisiana. 
When time is not an important consideration 
with the traveler, we know of no more delight- 
ful voyage than by a first-class steamboat down 
the " Father <^ Waters " to the Crescent City — 
a palace on the waters, in a delicious climate, 
through a magnificent country in the "Sunny 
South," sweeping from thirty-seven to thirty 
degrees north latitude, but ten hundred and forty 
miles by the meandering river. 

But the times lent an increased and some- 
what fearful enchantment to the novel voy- 
age, in January, 1861. Standing as we did, for 
the first time in our life, on the Ohio levee at 
Cairo, and still on free soil, though in sight of 
slave territory, just across the river in old Ken- 
tucky, where the great Henry Clay lived, and 
whence radiated his greatness over the world, 



32 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

the steamer standing at her wharf with a capac- 
ity of two thousand tons, her state-rooms taken 
by Southern-bound travelers, and having on 
board eighteen thousand bushels of corn from 
Egypt, we confess, as we stood there, at the 
hour of seven in the morning, ready with our 
company to take passage, and be borne away 
from all our free-soil associations, imagination 
stood on strained wing for a thousand miles 
down the river, essaying to divine the possible 
events of the next few days, and of that novel 
trip. 

Already before committing us and ours to the 
atmosphere and destiny of the Southern clime, 
did the darkness of the future pass over us and 
compel imagination to fold her wings. And 
then again, faith in progress, faith in Christian 
America, faith in Providence, struck that dark- 
ness from the sky, and bid us hope for peace. 
Up to that time, with thousands of others, we 
had indulged the pleasing and prominent thought 
that Christian civilization had progressed too 
far in this country to allow the people to plunge 
themselves into a fratricidal war. But events 
since have demonstrated to the contrary; and 
one is reminded that the reasons still exist that 
called forth the utterance from the Son of God : 



THE TRIP TO GALVESTON. 33 

'*Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : 
I came not to send peace, but a sword." 

The steamer left the wharf at Cairo, steamed 
down the river and passed Columbus, Kentucky. 
and the islands in the river. They had no spe- 
cial histories then, such as stirred the whole 
country a few months later, not even Island 
Number Ten, where commenced the first rebel 
blockade of the river. Nothing of special in- 
terest transpired to mar the general pleasure of 
the voyage. Sometimes one would hear the 
question of secession quietly mooted; but no 
excited or angry discussion. There was obvi- 
ously a terrible thinking going on generally, 
with all on board; but the passengers seemed 
indisposed to become much acquainted. They 
would not converse unless they could do so on 
the subject uppermost in their thoughts. And 
all plainly saw, and deeply felt, what that sub- 
ject was. But lips were sealed, they were in the 
bondage of the country, and the riveted fetters 
of silence were upon alL 

We remember a Southern gentleman came on 
board at Memphis. His personal appearance 
was imposing, his presence commanding, and 
would have been more so if he could have di- 
vested himself of that peculiarly haughty air 
that he wore as a sort of " martial cloak wrapped 
3 



34 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

round him." He probably stood six feet and 
two to four inches in hight, had a military build, 
and looked as though he was born to command, 
at least, as if he wanted to command, and thought 
he was born for that purpose. And the proba- 
bility is that he enjoyed the misfortune of having 
been born on a plantation, the *' heir apparent " 
to five or six hundred negroes. We were 
sitting near his dignity, one evening, in the 
gentlemen's cabin, others were sitting around, 
conversation was at low tide, when we made 
some remark about secession, at which his maj- 
esty took umbrage, and he contradicted us with 
an emphatic *'No sir!' He then eyed us in mo- 
mentary silence, as though canvassing the ques- 
tion mentally, whether we were not a live Yankee, 
and spying abolitionist, from the land toward 
the "north star," coming down South to steal 
negroes, or incite them to insurrection. And 
though he did not give us the benefit m words 
of his cogitations on the subject, we thought 
words were needless to convey to the mind what 
he thought and how he felt. 

We knew nothing then of the existence of 
the organization known as the " S. S." or " Sons 
of the South ; " but probably it was then in 
operation, and for aught we know our name and 
personal description went down on the books of 



THE TRIP TO GALVESTON. 35 

that secret organization. We were probably- 
spotted about that time. No other coUision 
happened between the Memphis gentleman and 
ourself, as we avoided further contact with him, 
observing that he was so agonized with self- 
importance that we judged he would be happier 
without intercourse with us than with it; and, 
vice versa, we felt in the same way toward him. 
The nearest approach to sociability afterward 
between us was by a mutual exchange of leering 
glances of the eye. 

If the Southern man hate it is with a perfect 
hatred, and his wrath is more easily provoked 
than that of the Northern man. He speaks not 
to his enemy except with the fiery tongue of 
his revolver. The man of the North hates with 
a mental reservation, leaving room for recon- 
ciliation ; but the man of the South is as hos- 
pitable and warm-hearted to a friend or guest as 
he is terrible in hate of an enemy. It was when 
we met his Memphis majesty that we began to 
appreciate the power of sectional prejudices, based 
on sectional differences — differences in institu- 
tions, customs, habits, climate and ways of 
thinking. 

It is a fact, patent to the intelligent traveler, 
that the temper of a people partakes largely and 
inevitably of the isothermal character of the 



36 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

climate they live in. This is seen in the South- 
ern States; and the further south one penetrates 
the more conspicuous the fact. Like the cli- 
mate the temper of the people is hot, fiery, im- 
petuous, and, on occasions, will burst out in 
volcanic eruption, submerging in utter ruin what 
has become obnoxious to its vengeful wrath. 
In the Northern States the temper of the people 
is like the climate, temperate, platonic, philo- 
sophical ; they take things patiently, steadily, 
perseveringly, certainly, and herein may be 
seen — bating other modifying conditions — the 
causal reason for the disparity of temper between 
the Northern man and the Southern. One is 
steady, persevering and more reliable; the other 
unsteady, more easily discouraged and less relia- 
ble ; can not brook contradiction or opposition 
without thoughts^ at least, of his six-shooter. 
Not so with the Northern man, he would prefer 
sitting down with his opponent and arguing the 
difference out to legitimate conclusions and a 
good understanding. 

Right here is one of the main reasons why 
the South, in the late war, was overwhelmed 
with defeat in four years. The commissarial 
department of army supplies lacked energy, in- 
tegrity, perseverance. The armies, by conse- 
quence, suffered terribly the last year and a half 



THE TRIP TO GALVESTON. 3/ 

of the war from desertion. Scores of thousands 
of men took leave of absence during that time — 
we will not stigmatize them deserters — went 
home and managed to keep out of the way of 
the ubiquitous conscript officer, or, by collusion 
with him, secured freedom from molestation by 
him. With naked feet and backs, and empty 
stomachs, they preferred to leave the field of 
active operations and let fat officers ** fight it out 
on that line." Thus the impetus with which the 
South inaugurated the war, though tremendous 
in maddened enthusiasm at first, soon became 
exhausted, and the grand on-rush was left by 
the suicidal policy, or want of policy, without 
resources, and in four years died out and suc- 
cumbed to the superior powers of the North. 

The general drift of past history goes to show 
that North men have generally been victors in 
all wars with South men where the mutual con- 
ditions of the contending parties otherwise were 
anything like equal. The northern climes are 
sturdy and masculine, while the southern are 
enervating and effeminate. The people of these 
respective latitudes, as it were by an inevitable 
law of assimilation in nature, are conformed to 
them in physical and mental condition. 

Without raising a question of the possible or 
impossible, but simply of the probable or im- 



38 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

probable, as touching the adaptability of white 
labor to the South — for the white man can do 
anything possible to be done by human agency^ 
at all, and if challenged ivill do it for the sake 
of experiment, or pride, or some pet theory, if 
nothing more — and by white man we mean the 
Anglo-Saxon, headship of all the human species 
in physical symmetry and intellectual force — it 
will be sufficient to say that, "judging the future 
by the past," which is a safe general rule, mak- 
ing all due allowance for exceptional cases, it is 
not to be expected the Anglo-Saxon race will 
ever perform the common field labor of the 
Southern States of this country, the Gulf States 
in particular. An appeal to their history in past 
ages, and other countries, will show they never 
have done it in such extreme latitudes. The 
reasons appear to be those of constitution and 
Providence, and are inseparably dual in form 
and action. The constitutional make-up of the 
Anglo-Saxon is such, so fine and sensitive, and 
so elastic withal, as displayed in his more native 
northern climes that he will probably ever obey, 
'in the main, the isothermal conditions of nature 
and climate, which affect and influence his ac- 
tivity, pro and con., and in and to which he was 
born. The temperate zone is unquestionably 
his center of gravity, and toward this his 



THE TRIP TO GALVESTON. 39 

Specific race will continue in the future, as in 
the past, to gravitate. 

If we go round the globe, neither in present 
nor past history will be found this race doing the 
common out-door labor in any countries lying 
between the equator and thirty-five degrees 
north latitude ; and the supposition is reasona- 
ble that they never will in the ages to come; 
unless in course of time a radical climatic trans- 
formation should take place, driving the south 
pole thirty degrees over into Asia, and bringing 
the north pole down thirty degrees nearer the 
equator. We would not advise movements or 
investments in anticipation of such an event. 

The reader will please mark that we do not 
fiay the white man can not do it, but simply that 
he Jias not, does not, and hence probably wiU 
not. Not that the maximum heat of those lati- 
tudes is greater or more oppressive than of the 
more northern latitude, or as much so, where 
grateful winds come in and compensate, but the 
heated term instead of closing at the end of one, 
two, or four weeks, at the most, as in the North, 
continues four to six months in the South, and 
brings upon the human system at last an ener- 
vation of body and spirit inevitable, and in ihe 
end almost constitutional. Northern people 
would freely pronounce and denounce it as 



40 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

sheer laziness, not taking account of the ch'matic 
conditions of the country. Now in this state 
of the case it is an open question if, after several 
generations had come and gone, the Anglo- 
Saxon type would not almost disappear, or so 
far change as to fail of recognition. The Angli- 
can tongue might preserve it if preserved itsel£ 
The more dusky races of mankind are the abo- 
riginal inhabitants of those countries and lati- 
tudes, and they constitute the norntal industrial 
agencies tliereof We noticed while in the South 
that the proportion of old people among the 
white population was small in comparison with 
their proportional numbers in the North ; while 
with the blacks, despite the hardships of their en- 
slaved condition, the proportion appeared much 
larger, thereby showing that the Anglo-Saxon's 
longevity there is less than in his native climate 
North. The violent probability is that correct 
tables of mortality, if they could be had, would 
confirm this view of the subject. 



SOCIAL TYPES. 4I 



^ 



CHAPTER III. 

SOCIAL TYPES. 

T is probable that the finest social types in 
^ this country have heretofore been found in 
the Soutli. That this is true, or could be 
under the dark shadows of an institution so 
out of harmony with the progressive spirit of 
the age certainly seems paradoxical. The 
slaveholding population, it is claimed, repre- 
sented more social refinement and elegance of 
personal manners than any other class in Amer- 
ica. Whatever barbarous proclivities were 
chargeable to them in other respects, they were 
not so chargeable in the social aspects of their 
characters. And this was one of the slave- 
holder's vantage-grounds, that he never failed 
to employ on occasion of entertaining travelers 
and visitors from other portions of the world, 
especially from the Northern States, Perhaps 
there was nothing the Southern gentleman 
prided himself more upon than the prestige of 
his social power; and many a Northern man has 



42 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

lost the backbone of his opposition to the pecu- 
liar institution under its seductive influence. A 
social insult, perhaps, more than any other, 
was bitterly resented and summarily punished. 

To attain a high degree of social culture and 
refinement is not unlike learning a trade, or one 
of the fine arts. It is an art, if not the art of 
arts, which requires study and practice ; as much 
so as to become a first-class tradesman or artist 
of any kind. One has to pass the trying ordeal 
of social gymnastics. The beauty of social 
elegance is like the "beauty of holiness." It 
attracts the admiration of most, excites the envy 
of many, the jealousy and hate of the mean, 
and is a ruling power in every department of 
Church and State, and of society. This was the 
strong secret agency in the hands of the South — 
\\\^ '' siiavitcr in 7;iodo " thd.t gave them leading 
sway so long in Congress, and with the Govern- 
ment. 

There is this difference, however, in the com- 
parison between the "beauty of holiness" and 
that of social perfection — the one 7;i?/st be real, 
the other may have but the semblance of reality, 
being so much of an art, while the other is the 
very essence of character. In order to great 
social refinement one needs ample time or leis- 
ure to cultivate the art. And who in America 



SOCIAL TYPES. 43 

have been so much favored in the past with 
leisure as the people of the South? 

in elegance and ease of personal manners 
perhaps no man in America excelled Henry- 
Clay. His very style of taking snuff, and hand- 
ling his snuff-box, is said to have been so ele- 
gant that, though inimitable, yet his friends and 
admirers, in and out of Congress, who indulged 
the nasal habit attempted to copy him. 

The late Rt. Rev. General Polk, of the Con- 
federate Army, and Bishop of the Episcopal 
Church, is said to have been scarcely equaled 
in pleasant manners. He made it a specialty 
of his personal improvement until he had be- 
come something wonderful in social power. He 
it was that, after having occupied Columbus, 
Kentucky, with his troops, went on board a 
Federal gunboat at Island Number Ten, by in- 
vitation of the commander, to talk over some 
war question, and during the interview was in- 
vited to a social glass of wine. The Federal 
officer led off in a toast: "To the nam^e of 
George Washington, the Father of his Country." 
General Polk gracefully acknowledged the com- 
pliment, and then holding up his glass said: 
" George Washington, the first rebel." Perhaps 
no finer retort can be found in the history of 
the late war, or in the English language, as to 



44 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

that matter; so elegant, so devoid of grossness, 
or of anything that could give possible offense 
to a genteel mind. 

We beg the reader not to take the impression 
of supercilious excess in the polite manners of 
the Southern people, or of anything bordering 
on affectation, for this would be great injustice 
to them. There was too much whole-souled 
magnanimity and hospitality about them for 
that. The play of their manners was free from 
the prescriptive rules and ceremony which fre- 
quently produce in one's breast an agony of 
anxiety, and yet it was courtly and dignified, 
without obsequious flattery or littleness. 



VOYAGE DOWN THE RIVER. 45 



CHAPTER IV. 

UT to return to our voyage down the river. 
On nearing Memphis we were advised by 
the officers of the boat that we might expect 
a haihng shot from the batteries just above 
the city. And sure enough it came right across 
our bows. We ran in shore, and, of course, 
were startled into a new and strange feeling, as 
yet inexplicable, because so un-American, and 
contrary to the hitherto free experience of 
American travelers on their own waters or their 
own soil. Was it for amusement or a farcical bur- 
lesque on the governments of the Old World ? 
Or was it ominous of that fearful struggle of blood 
which afterward rent the country for four long 
years ? Events have since shown that " Coming 
events cast their shadows before." 

After a few hours' detention we passed on 
down the river; but as we reached Vicksburg 
again we heard the booming of cannon as a 
signal to again tie up, be overhauled and show 
our " manifest." After that we were graciously 



46 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

permitted to pass all points without further mo- 
lestation ; for the reason, we suppose, that hav- 
ing passed the upper points of cannonized 
salutations, and thereby cleansed of all suspicion 
of being or carrying "contraband of war," it was 
unnecessary to waste any more powder on us. 
So we reached the Crescent City in peace and 
safety ; when, for the first time, we looked upon 
its six miles or more of wharves, literally piled 
with cotton and corn, and other products of both 
North and South, and merchandise from Europe 
and the Atlantic cities by the ten thousand 
packages, and there were scores of steamboats, 
flatboats, and other crafts discharging their 
cargoes. 

In the free play of imagination one was re- 
minded of the account of the ancient provision 
of the Egyptian monarch, made under the pro- 
phetic direction and supervising genius of the 
virtuous and immaculate Joseph, against the 
seven years' famine. And as one stood there, 
on the hurricane-deck, or " texas," of some im- 
mense steamer, and looked up and down, over 
and around those crescent-laid wharves, one 
was moved to ask in wonder, whence and for 
what these immense and almost endless stores 
of sugar, molasses, flour, pork, corn, potatoes, 
fruits, etc., and what mean these dense masses 



47 

of earnest-looking people, hurrying to and fro 
on the streets. Ah ! it is the 2ist day of Janu- 
ary, 1 86 1, and the next day was fraught with 
the momentous and grave issues of an election 
on the question of secession. The flags of all 
civilized nations were floating in all parts of the < 
city, except the ''Stars and Stripes;" and among 
them was most conspicuously displayed the 
" Rattlesnake" flag of Louisiana; and one could 
but feel it was a fit emblem of the occasion, and 
of the spirit of some of the people. One gen- 
tleman told us that though he had been a 
resident of the city for many years, and sympa- 
thized with Southern grievances, yet when he 
saw the flag of the Union trailed in the dust, 
and put out of sight, and the Rattlesnake of 
Louisiana hung up in its place on the Custom 
tlouse, he cried like a child, and somehow felt 
as though the world was being buried and he 
was attending the funeral. 

Demoralized ! and for a change. 
Unseen by friend or foe, unicnown 
Among the throng where all were strange, 
No harm to us, to others none. 
Thus reas'ning fancy held the sway, 
As did the de'l in Adam's day : 
And so " Varieties " that night 
We saw — and " Little Dot " so bright. 
We saw " The Cricket on the Hearth," 



48 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

And heard it sing in joyous mirth, 
And heard it till it sang no more, 
Because the fire got low, and low'r. 
In " John's " poor heart, and on the floor, 
And dying embers ashes bore, 
And cold crept in through cracks and door, 
And cricket hid where 'twas before. 
Then tyrant conscience smote the charm I 
But sense replied : Why where's the harm ? 
'Tis better thus to spend our time 
Than to be caught in bigger crime. 
Another blow ! the festive craft 
Of sense careen'd, and shipp'd a draught 
Of drowning waters o'er the deck. 
But mercy came and sav'd the wreck. 
The conscience only knows the law ; 
And lashes with it rough and raw, 
While sense pl?ys with it, sly bo-peep, 
Nor will its orders always keep. 
Mandamus on mandamus comes 
From court by conscience kept and run, 
The devil serves process in tones 
That scare poor sense and spoil its fun. 
That night in sweet "Varieties" 
Were many thund'ring consciences ; 
But still bewitching play went on. 
And righted misapprehension. 
Sweet truth, but not in monkish mood, 
Came out, and in free tresses stood ; 
She gave the bowl of blood to law, 
Without a kiss, the people saw. 
But turn'd to mercy all in tears, 
Embrac'd and kiss'd, then fled the fears. 
Thus shriv'd by truth and grace in one, 



VISIT TO THE ** VARIETIES. 49 

The play grew brighter till 'twas done. 

"With mingled hope and fear we thought 

That " John " might lose his " Little Dot," 

For " Tackleton," both mean and dried, 

His jeal'sy hard to stir he tried, 

"The barn, dear John, she's there, she's there, 

With that young ' Salt ' from o'er the sea ; 

He's handsome tho', it is but fair 

To own, but so much worse for thee. 

His nut-brown hair, his hazel eyes, 

His form, and feature, and his size, 

Look just like hers, as near as can 

The charm-s of woman and of man. 

They stroll together everywhere, 

Now 'mong the orchard trees they are, 

Now in the deep and secret grove, 

Beyond all eyes save One above. 

He plots, dear John, against thy heart, 

And seeks her life from thine to part. 

Roll back the tide of coming woe I 

See ! do ! ere it's too late to do ! 

Woman's a name for falsity, 

A dark and deep immensity 

Of mystery — who can explain? 

I trust her not — she's made in vain I " 

All eyes and ears were open wide, 

As John and Tack stood side by side, 

One's face was written o'er with self, 

And one with honor's soul itself. 

" Old Tack, thou puritanic wretch I " 

Said John, " Thy neck deserves to stretch I 

Thou lying fiend! How dar'st thou blot 

The honor of my little Dot, 

With lies from out thy lying throat, 

4 



50 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS, 

Each lie a mountain from a mote ? 

I'll brain thee (raised fist) if thou don't repent 

And send thee where thou should'st be sent! 

D'ye hear ! " " Yes, Sir, distinctly, Sir, 

I hear, I hear," whin'd the old cur, 

"Don't strike me, John, for I'm a priest, 

Nor treat me as you would a beast." 

Now John look'd out upon the lawn . 

And spied his little Dot with one 

In sailor jacket short, not long. 

Come tripping on with flow'rs and song. 

The raven flapp'd his wings but once — that's all^ 

The pair were in the cottage hall ; 

The skylark rose, went up the sky, 

And sung: " Dot's brother's home to live and die.'* 

The play Avas done and love remain'd ; 

The union was preserved, tho' strained 

By tests of slander, malice, hate. 

Its strength was prov'd too much, too great. 

And here a moral lesson came, 

An emblem of our country's life ; 

And as the sequel showed, the same 

As harmony 'twixt man and wife. 

Now Uncle Sam, like Brigham Young, you know, 

Had many wives, say thirty or so, 

And Lou'si Ann would snap the Fed'ral band, 

And let the Young Confed'rate take her hand. 

Her children were Frenchy, fickle and warm, 

And held a grand pow-wow in the wigwam ; 

They solemnly said their mother should wed 

The young suitor, and leave the old man's bed. 

But we waited not to witness the lot 

Of the old and the new, but left the spot, 

Our way to pursue, tho' clouds made us rue 

Leaving the old for the strange and the new. 



NEW ORLEANS. 5 1 



CHAPTER V. 

NEW ORLEANS AND GALVESTON. 



^^tEW 



ORLEANS stands on the eastern 
bank of the Mississippi River, one hundred 
^T*- and ten miles from the Gulf of Mexico, 
and is called the '* Crescent City," because 
of the sublime and beautiful sweep of the 
" Father of Waters " around the city in a perfect 
circle, striking in on the north, thence circling to 
the west, then south, then east, then gently north, 
on a bend enchanting to behold, coming up to 
the landing at a point due east two or three 
miles only, from the river on the west of the city, 
where it first heaves in sight to the traveler on 
the deck of a steamer coming down, making a 
distance of ten to fifteen miles in the circuit, 
and leaving the city stand on a grand dead level 
peninsula, almost an island. The magnificent 
bosom of the waters heaves and presses up the 
river sides in fresh beauty constantly, as if "Old 
Neptune's" soul stood beneath in the river's 
mighty depths, and throwing out broad shoulders 



J2f FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

and long arms spanning its breadth, were intent 
on heaving the waters over its leveed banks to 
deluge and drown out the inhabitants. 

Water is taken from the river and conducted 
along either side of the streets, just at the edge 
of the sidewalks, in stone ducts, built up square 
a foot or so in depth and width. With such fa- 
cilities for irrigating the streets New Orleans 
may be, and is, one of the cleanest and sweetest 
cities in the world. The spirit of the people 
seems broken since the war, and doubtless many 
a year will pass ere the old romantic gayeties 
and business pluck and prosperity will come 
back again. The evil genius of the "peculiar 
institution " is gone never to return, though its 
corporal presence remains, to man the live in- 
dustries of the olden times. 

But to resume our narrative of travel. We 
staid in New Orleans during the night of the 
2 1st of January, but did not remain the next 
day to witness the further movement of seces- 
sion, but crossed the river ferry at eight o'clock 
in the morning, and took the train at Algiers, on 
the west side, for Berwick's Bay, seventy-five 
miles distant, and the terminus west of the rail- 
road. Most of the route may be characterized 
as crocodile or alligator swamp. It was covered 
with water and heavy timber, and a thick under- 



OCEAN VOYAGE. 53 

growth of cane, Spanish daggers and dwarf 
palm, such as is manufactured into palm-leaf 
hats, with other kinds of water shrubbery. 
When cleared up and properly prepared these 
lands will make splendid rice and sugar planta- 
tions. The alligator will migrate before the 
hand and foot of civilization. 

Thence we shipped by " Morgan Line " of 
steamers to Galveston, two hundred and fifty 
miles, on the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing occurred 
to mar the general pleasure of this part of the 
journey. Neptune was unusually quiet, only 
showing his disposition in gentle undulations of 
the deep ; no heaving billows, with white caps 
breaking on their angry crests, and dashing the 
iron-bound vessel up in the air, and dropping 
her again in cradles of the deep ; no qualms and 
retching to make one feel he didn't care whether 
the vessel lived or went to the bottom, but rather 
preferred the latter; and the sooner the better. 
No, a " norther' " was blowing off mainland — 
now and then in sight — and laid the waters 
smooth so that we took regular meals and kept 
them down, and were not thrown from our berths 
by a bouncing boat. 

On approaching Galveston at sea, twenty 
miles away, vision is frequently cheated by the 
intervention of a mirage, the effect of which is 



54 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

to give to the city the appearance of air-suspen- 
sion — a heavenward elongation, sitting on the 
lap of the ocean with no terra firnia beneath. 
But on nearer approach the illusion disappears, 
and there stands before you, on a small piece of 
nature's ground-work, and as though painted by 
a fairy hand, in spiritual shadows, on the low 
extended horizon beyond, Galveston, exciting 
the strange beholder into the romantic feeling 
that it is a city of fairies. And though the ro- 
mance is toned down by the reality on landing, 
yet there she stands, one of the finest and most 
beautiful cities in the South of her size. She 
had before the war a population of twelve to 
fifteen thousand, and in one year after the war 
she had twenty-five thousand souls, and three 
thousand additional buildings. 

Galveston stands on the east end of an island 
of the same name, running northeast and south- 
west, thirty miles in length, and with a varying 
width of two to four miles. Plausible tradition 
has it that when the island was first occupied 
and settled by Anglo-Americans, forty to fifty 
years ago, they found as its lone occupant a 
beautiful Castillian woman in male attire, sup- 
posed to have been connected with the notorious 
Captain Lafitte, who, with his band, committed 
piratical depredations on the Gulf and in the 



GALVESTON. 55 

W€st Indies, and who had headquarters there 
and up the wilds of the Trinity River. Hence 
the island was first facetiously called *' Gal-with- 
a-vest-on," but afterward it was reduced to the^ 
more elegant trisyllabic of Galveston. 

The island is a huge long sandbank, the work 
of the Gulf waters for ages in sand deposits. 
The indentation of the main shore where the 
island lies was favorable for such deposits. 
But this alone does not sufficiently account for 
the fact that the island is at that particular place. 
The Gulf Stream, in its rebound and return 
movement from the shore of Western Texas, a 
hundred and fifty miles to the southwest of 
Galveston, after having been driven there by the 
"trade winds" that come in from the direction 
of the Coast of Africa-^from the southeast, 
through the channel between Cuba and Yucatan 
— passes near the island, en route to the channel 
between Florida and Cuba, and in its passage 
throws off inshore the sand disturbed and gath- 
ered up in its course from the bottom of the 
Gulf Besides Trinity River comes in at the 
head and east of the island, and passes out into 
the Gulf Stream in a southeasterly direction, 
throwing to the right, toward the island, deposits 
similar to those made to the left by the Gulf 
Stream. Thus do we theorize as to the natural 



56 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

causes for the formation and existence of the 
island. These two counter forces of water co- 
operate, and between them have made it what it 
is. Besides this sandbar above water there are 
lying between these two water forces, and a few 
feet beneath the surface, sand reefs running from 
the head of the island southeast, and circling 
south and west five or six miles, forming a 
splendid outside harbor, with a depth of w^ater 
ranging from a minimum of ten to a maximum 
of seventy feet. The heaviest vessels can lie 
there and ride at anchor in perfect safety, as 
they are protected from the heavy " trade winds '* 
from the southeast, and others from the south, 
by these reefs. Nature has furnished the sur- 
face of the island with a few inches of light 
sandy soil, warm, and quick -producing, growing 
corn, the largest and sweetest sweet potatoes, 
the largest and most delicious melons of all 
kinds one ever saw or ate, with garden sauce 
of every name and nature ; even Irish potatoes, 
if grown from seed imported from the north 
each year. The whole island from the city to the 
southwest end thereof furnishes fine grazing for 
cattle and other stock, and the butchers keep 
their beeves there a few days before they are 
slaughtered and sold in the market, and the beef 
when marketed and on the table is the sweetest 



GALVESTON. 57 

and most savory the writer ever found in any 
country, particularly that fattened on mesquite 
grass. The Gulf beach in low tide furnishes 
the finest ride or drive imaginable, and at even- 
tide hundreds of vehicles and pedestrians may 
be seen enjoying themselves there. 

The commercial importance of Galveston may 
be judged of by the single fact that of the four 
hundred thousand bales of cotton produced in 
Texas in the year i860 three hundred thousand 
bales were compressed and exported at Galves- 
ton, worth at that time ^15,000,000 in gold, but 
would now be worth ^25,000,000. The geo- 
graphical location of Galveston speaks also for 
its commercial importance. It is the New 
York of Texas, and Galveston Island is the 
Long Island of Texas. The inside harbor lies 
in the bay immediately in thfe rear of the city, 
between the island and the mainland, where the 
bay is two miles wide. The entrance to the 
harbor has ten feet of water over the bar in low 
tide, and fourteen to sixteen feet in high tide. 

Galveston lies in twenty-nine degrees north 
latitude, and midway between the mouth of the 
Mississippi River on the east, and Mexico and 
the Rio Grande on the west. If you draw an 
imaginary line commencing at the mouth of the 
Columbia River, in Oregon, running southeast; 



58 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

another line commencing at Lake Itasca, the 
headwaters of the Mississippi, running due 
south, and another commencing at Portland, 
Maine, running due southwest; all these lines 
will intersect at Galveston. One of the driving 
wheels of the great commercial wagon of the 
United States stands at Galveston, and the steam 
of progress is driving the mighty vehicle west- 
ward, keeping pace with the ''star of empire.'* 
When that network of railroads which but 
for secession would now have been thrown over 
all Texas, east, west, north and south, tapping 
the wheat regions of Northern Texas, the lum- 
ber regions of Eastern Texas, the stock regions 
of Western Texas, and the cotton and sugar re- 
gions of Southern Texas; we say, when this 
railroad system shall be achieved for that great 
country, thus developing and bringing to the 
markets of the world the productive resources 
of Texas, a country six to seven hundred miles 
square, large enough to lay down on its surface 
the State of Massachusetts more than thirty 
times, and not lap anywhere, the result will 
be wonderful beyond all present calculations. 
Every variety of soil is found in Texas, and all 
kinds of grain and fruit can be produced there, 
with sugar, and cotton one to four bales to the 
acre. 



TEXAS. 59 

.Texas is a country of great extremes and con- 
tradictions. It is the hottest and coldest; the 
driest and wettest ; it has the most streams and 
the least water, some wet and some dry, and 
mostly dry at that; the best soil and the poor- 
est, very little of the latter; the most cattle 
and the least milk, and butter, and cheese, and 
beef; the most salubrious climate and most sud- 
den changes of weather; the least rain and 
heaviest rain-storms ; the sunniest sky and most 
terrific thunder-storms; the most balmy Gulf 
breezes and most bitter biting northers ; long 
rivers and least navigation; the heaviest pine 
forests and least pine lumber; the best types of 
society, and the meanest the sun ever shone 
upon. 

Portable saw-mills, located along projected 
railroads in those pine forests lying in Eastern 
Texas, hundreds of miles in extent, taking Bra- 
zos River as the dividing line between Eastern 
and Western Texas, would coin money for the 
proprietors. And the prediction is safe that the 
time is not far distant when the railroads will be 
built, those forests felled and cut up into lum- 
ber, towns spring up, and the "wilderness bud 
and blossom as the rose." 

The wet and dry seasons come in pretty reg- 
ular alternations, each in a series of seven to 



60 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS." 

ten years. And nature, ever faithful, with her 
" canny hand " has recorded these meteorologi- 
cal histories in trees of the forest, and the rec- 
ord may be traced back through a period of two 
hundred years. The unmistakable record is 
traceable in the thick and thin rings or grains 
of the trees, varying in thickness from that of a 
wafer to a quarter of an inch, in grades from 
thin to thick, the former representing the dry, 
and the latter the wet seasons. 

Now some crops of the country are more suc- 
cessfully raised in the dry seasons, and others 
in the wet. Cotton is produced in the greatest 
abundance in a comparatively dry season ; corn 
the reverse. So that, by keeping and observing 
a critical meteorological record the planter can 
calculate with a good degree of certainty what 
crops would promise best from year to year. 
Thus, we believe. Providence has made it feasi- 
ble, through science and art, for man to live and 
prosper in any country or climate under the 
sun. And further, the normal products of the 
different countries and climates are most suita- 
ble for the industries, health and happiness of 
the inhabitants thereof 

If the labor question of that country is ever 
properly settled and harmonized — in regard to 
which we are more hopeful than doubtful from 



TEXAS. 6 1 

recent data — the leading productive Interest of 
Texas will continue to be that of cotton, par- 
ticularly in the southern-central section. But 
we think the future will show that the strongest 
rival interest will be grape culture and wine 
making. 

It is now conceded and agreed by practical 
men in the business of grape-growing there, 
that the soil and climate of Texas are admira- 
bly adapted to grape culture ; and though in the 
past cotton has engrossed the attention of the 
people to the exclusion almost of every product 
except corn, now the cultivation of grapes is 
assuming prominent and tangible shape, and 
commanding the practical attention of the citi- 
zens of the State. Besides, the next kw years 
will probably bring into the State thousands of 
vine-growers from the South of France and Ger- 
many, who will make this their principal busi- 
ness. If we look at the progress made with the 
vine in Ohio and other Northern States, with a 
less favored soil and climate, increasing from 
four thousand acres, ten or twelve years ago, to 
two millions of acres now devoted to wine- 
growing, yielding large profits and immense 
fortunes for those engaged in the business, how 
much greater success ma}^ be expected to accrue 



62 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

from an equal outlay of money and effort in the. 
warm loamy soils of Texas, 
i The change in the labor system, resulting 
from the late war, is bringing the subject into 
more public notice. The system of forced 
labor no longer overshadows and oppresses the 
spirit of progress and improvement there. The 
inveterate slowness of the country must give 
way before the advancing step of reform, and as 
increasing light breaks in, bringing to public view 
the ponderous follies of the past industrial his- 
tory of the country, new ideas will be allowed 
and patronized ; new experiments made on scien- 
tific principles, and the present and prospective 
resources of the country, heretofore undiscov- 
ered or neglected, will be developed to a degree 
of profit and fortune that will astound the people 
themselves. When the people see that, in the 
matter of grape culture, a few acres cultivated in 
the vine will yield as large a profit as a cotton 
plantation ten times as large, and requiring ten 
times the labor, many more will be tempted to 
plant vineyards and reap the easy reward ; so that 
after they are well planted and cared for, and by 
the third year have reached the profitable bear- 
ing period, instead of fifty dollars pfr acre, at 
most, net profit, as with cotton, for wijie only a 
clear profit of five hundred to one thousand 



TEXAS. 63 

dollars per acre may be realized from grapes, 
and equally so for table use. Nor is there dan- 
ge'r of overstocking the market with so useful 
and healthful a delicacy. The greater the sup- 
ply the greater the demand. Our remarks on 
profits of grape culture are not imaginary guess-, 
work, but based on well ascertained facts in the 
experience of vine-growers in Texas, with whom 
we have a personal acquaintance. They recom- 
mend the following varieties as doing well and 
being profitable there: The Concord, Clinton, 
Diana, Delaware, Iowa, Ives' Seedling, Herbe- 
rnont, Creveling, Hartford Prolific, Perkins, 
lilack July, Jacques, and Rogers' Hybrids num- 
bers I, 3, 4, 9, 15, 19, 22; and they say the 
beginner will do well to commence with the Clin- 
ton, Concord, etc., which will almost take care 
of themselves. The Diana is a fine grape for 
either table or wine. The Delaware and Isabella 
are fine table grapes, and the best native growers 
they have. But in Texas the trouble is to 
choose, for they nearly all do well. 

As an indication and natural justification of 
the most sanguine ideas of grape culture in 
Texas, we will state that the indigenous Mustang 
grape grows there spontaneously in great waste- 
ful abundance, along the water-courses, on the 
uplands and upland "dry runs." There are 



64 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

cart-loads, car-loads, yes, steamboat loads of 
them growing wild over the country, and in dif- 
ferent varieties. From this kind of grape are 
manufactured just those claret or sour wines 
most grateful to the tastes of people in hot 
climates. 

It is thought by many good people in Texas, 
and as a temperance expedient too, that Provi- 
dence hereby indicates what drinks, aside from 
water, are needful for the health and temperate 
habits of the country. The question is, why is 
the country so overstocked with this kind of 
grape ? not by accident, or for mere ornament, 
certainly, nor for the use of bird or beast, for 
they touch them not, nor yet for table use, as 
no human tougue or lips would last long coming 
in contact with the powerful acid of the hull of 
this kind of grape. The pulp has a most de- 
licious flavor, but can not be sucked from its 
dark inclosure without bringing with it the biting 
acid. There is no alternative ; it was intended 
for man's use after being transformed into wine. 



CLIMATE. 65 



CHAPTER VI. 

EFFECT OF CLIMATE ON TASTES AND APPETITES. 



T is worthy of note and may be remarked 
that one's tastes and appetites undergo great 
^ changes in passing from a high northern 
clime to a southern ; so much so that to his 
own surprise one finds himself literally accom- 
plishing the experience of " loving what he once 
hated, and hating what he once loved." For 
example, buttermilk and clabber are delicious to 
the taste there ; but few people ever think of 
them in the North except in association with 
food for swine. There, for convenience of using 
at meals, the milk fresh from the cow is first 
strained into bowls and tumblers, and then set 
aside and left stand for the cream to rise, and 
the hot weather, with or without thunder-storms, 
to inspissate the milk into clabber. Then it is 
brought on as the most delicious dish on the 
table, reserved as dessert for the last round, sprin- 
kled with clean white sugar. 

The difference of feeling, taste, appetite and 
5 



66 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

temper we experience in changing climates is 
exactly measured by the isothermal difference 
of our latitudes. One may have a sweet platonic 
temper in the North, but in changing latitude 
ten or fifteen degrees southward, he will be sur- 
prised to find his temper tending to a change 
of ten or fifteen degrees also. And if he be a 
Christian he will be tempted at times to think 
divine grace not sufficient to preserve the peace 
between conscience and conduct. The reader 
will please note that we speak in these matters 
not from observation alone but with the author- 
ity of experience also. 

We knew a minister of religion there, a recent 
import from the virtuous and platonic North, 
who had not been thoroughly mad for twenty 
years, and who possessed no little degree of 
self-complacency on the score of an invincible 
equanimity of temper; and his feeling had the 
merit of fact; so much so that once on a time, 
before his migration southward, one of his 
friends, observing his uniform evenness of tem- 
per, even in the midst of great provocation, and 
becoming irritated at his want of irritation, said 
to him : " Tell me. Sir, why is it that you don't 
get mad sometimes; your want of temper seems 
unmanly, unnatural, and savors of effeminacy, 
and reminds me to quote Shakespeare on you 



CLIMATE. 67 

thus: You can 'smile, and smile, and be a vil- 
lain still.' Don't refuse to express indignation 
on just occasion, but blow off the pent-up stuff; 
a little thunder now and then purifies a sultry- 
atmosphere." - 

We saw this clerical specimen of "patience 
on a monument " one day suddenly lose his 
virtuous temper, and fall into a paroxysm of 
madness, and on slight provocation, quite fear- 
ful to behold, in which he poured out the vials 
of his wrath upon his friend, to the exhaustion 
of all decent epithets. Samson was shorn of 
his strength and left weak like another man, 
self-mortified beyond measure ! Much we 
searched to know the cause of this sudden 
transformation, and while we wondered fancy 
heard a voice whisper, *' The climate, the cli- 
mate." 

From this standpoint we commenced a series 
of observations, and became satisfied the fancied 
suggestion was correct. We found by pushing 
inquiry far enough that, church members were 
considered quite excusable in the use of pro- 
fane language when driving ox or mule teams. 
The offense was not regarded as deserving,severe 
reprimand or expulsion from the church. A 
more puritanic style of Christian morals would 
not allow the excuse to be carried to such a de- 



68 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

gree of license, for it sternly insists that the 
Christian should be master, and not subject, at 
the hour of trial, and will scarcely allow that 
circumstances may be reckoned in the moral 
count to palliate offenses. 

Doubtless the standard of moral sentiment 
with the public in g'ross is lower in Texas than 
elsewhere in the South, because, forsooth, it is 
a newer country ; and in this respect partakes 
of the free and easy characteristics common to 
all new countries in their pioneer life. Besides, 
it was originally settled by an Anglo-American 
element, called in the expressive parlance of 
those days " renegade Americans," from the 
"States," "refugees from justice" many of them, 
smart, shrewd and unscrupulous, whose sons 
are now on the stage of action. This was the 
element which, during the late war, found an 
opportunity for the gratification of its native in- 
stincts, and dominated everything, and inaugur- 
ated and kept alive a perfect reign of terror in 
the absence of the better class of citizens at the 
seat of war. Haifa dozen of these desperadoes 
could intimidate and plunder a town without let 
or hindrance; and if any one objected or offered 
resistance he was shot down like a dog, and 
nothing said or done about it. Eight or ten of 
them entered our store one day, in the summer 



ROBBERY. 69 

of 1863, and in our presence helped themselves 
to suits of clothing, boots and shoes, hats and 
caps, taking from six to eight hundred dollars' 
worth, in gold. Some of them duplicated and 
triplicated the robberies. One of them walked 
up to us and flourishing a sixshooter across the 
counter, said: " If you say a word there is what 
will make daylight shine through your d — d Yan- 
kee carcass." The situation was not pleasant at 
all, but there was no relief They walked off with 
their plunder, and we thought as they went, 
"good riddance to bad rubbish;" but no, this 
was not the end of the matter, for on the prin- 
ciple that man never forgives whom he has in- 
jured, we had to meet a personal challenge to a 
duel from the leader of the gang, the one who 
had threatened to make daylight shine in a disa- 
greeable way. The challenge was given because 
we had said to a lady accomplice of theirs, who 
was in the store after the robbery, ostensibly to 
purchase goods, but really to draw us out in 
some unguarded remark that could be used as 
an excuse for an attack on us : " That in ordi- 
nary times, their conduct would be considered 
no less a crime than robbery." Our challenger 
said he was ready to stake his life in vindication 
of his conduct, and he turned pale and trembled 
like an aspen leaf While > he was excited we 



70 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

kept cool, and suggested to him that perhaps 
his information about what had been said was 
not quite correct, and even if it were, and we 
should fight over the matter, and one of us 
should have the satisfaction of carrying the 
other's blood on his soul to the judgment, we 
did not see how that would change the character 
of their original conduct. That if he were rea- 
sonable the matter could be adjusted between 
us peaceably. And on appealing to his better 
judgment, he conceded we were right, and said 
in conclusion: 

** Mr. North, though you are from our enemies' 
country I believe you are a gentleman, and 
hereafter I am your friend." 

** Well," said we, " how much better such a 
termination to a bad matter than to make targets 
of ourselves in a duel. And now, my good fel- 
low, let by-gones be by-gones, and may we have 
a better understanding in the future." 

"Agreed," he said, and we parted. 

We met casually afterward, and he minded 
the treaty. 



OATH OF OFFICE. /I 



CHAPTER VII. 

HE oath of office in Texas is the same it is 
in Illinois ; and yet it seems to have little 
power to save the country from the curses 
of the dueling spirit. It would seem that 
the "code of honor," so called, is a good deal de- 
moralized in Texas, in comparison with its status 
in the older Southern States — if such a thing 
can be demoralized. It assumes more the form 
of open and secret assassination — shooting a 
man down behind his back, or in the dark, or 
on sight, with the simple warning, ''Take care 
of yvurself" 

A duelist can not hold office in Texas, but 
he can defeat a good law by turning assassin, 
and committing a crime that eclipses the one 
ik.j bidden by the oath of office. 

It may be that the criminal reports of Texas 
;an show that a man has been hung there for 
killing a man, but it is doubtful. But many a 
man has been hung for stealing a horse by 
*' Judge Lynch." The horse thief is generally 



72 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

disposed of in this summary way without judge 
or jury ; and even when tried and sentenced by 
the courts to the penitentiary the officer having 
charge of the prisoner for safe dehvery there, 
by collusion or otherwise, reports him "escaped," 
by which the knowing ones understand he is 
rescued from the officer by a mob and hung to 
the nearest tree. Shame on such law and order, 
even among barbarians. But such are the issues 
of life and death in Texas, and a man is a little 
nearer death there all the while than in any 
other country we wot of 

As an example of the jeopardy of human life, 
and how crime against society may be committed 
with impunity in that country, we will give the 
case of a leading business man in one of the 
cities of Texas, and a prominent member of a 
leading religious body (whose name wc withhold), 
who, some years before the war, had a personal 
difficulty with a citizen, who had threatened him 
with personal violence. He had him placed 
under arrest, to be bound over to keep the 
peace ; but when so arrested, and in the hands 
of the officer of the law, and at a moment when 
he was most harmless, the meek follower of ///;// 
who *' resisted not evil," drew a pistol and shot 
him dead ! And would you think it, to the dis- 
grace and outrage of religious decency, and law 



THE DOCTOR OF DIVINITY. 73 

and order, no notice was ever taken of it by 
either the courts or the church. He has been 
an acceptable member of the same religious 
sect ever since, worshiped at her altars, taken 
her sacraments, said her prayers, and mingled 
in her fellowships. We have frequently seen 
him taking part in religious service, but could 
never set eyes on his reticent cast-iron face with- 
out seeing the mark of Cain upon him. In the 
murderous act he gave the clearest evidence of 
both physical and moral cowardice, and hellish 
revenge. 

But after all, why should such a state of things 
be thought so very strange, when laymen have 
the example of the priest. " Like people, like 
priest," is true in more senses than one. There 
is a certain Doctor of Divinity in Texas who is 
5>aid to be a man of profound learning and intel- 
lectual refinement, President, before the war, of 

University, located at C, and named for a 

celebrated ecclesiastic. This divine was con- 
sidered and admired by many as the leading 
orator of the State. He had been imported 
from the State called the "Mother of Presi- 
dents," a few years prior to the war, to push 
forward and build up the educational interests 
of the State, and especially of the religious de- 
nomination in which he was a shining light. 



74 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

But when secession was sprung upon the peo- 
ple he switched off on that, and became the 
most violent advocate, perhaps, in all the State, 
of the right and of the duty of Secession. He 
canvassed the State in that interest. The war 
opened, he raised a regiment, was made its colo- 
nel, and went to the front. It was not long be- 
fore reports came back that the Doctor was 
drinking, and had been seen intoxicated more 
than once. Meanwhile his ambition was strug- 
gling for a brigadier-generalship, which he 
never reached. Two years passed, and the Con- 
federacy was meeting heavy reverses in the 
field; and now the time had come to give a few 
more turns to the thumb-screws of conscription, 
even to the extent, as General Grant said, of 
** robbing the cradle and the grave." 

The Doctor was just the man to send home 
from the army to canvass the State by way of 
bolstering up a sinking cause, and preparing the 
people — what were left of them, the old men 
and women and babies — for the new movements 
of military despotism. We heard the Doctor 
in a labored speech of two or three hours* length, 
in which he attempted to show that the Con- 
federacy had never been more promising of final 
success. That though some appearances were 
unfavorable, such as the loss of New Orleans, 



THE DOCTOR OF DIVINITY. 75 

Vicksburg and the command of the Mississippi 
River, and some other ?/';nmportant points, yet 
the spirit of the Confederacy was unbroken, the 
armies were withdrawing from all unimportant 
places, except Richmond, and concentrating on 
important ones, located off the principal thor- 
oughfares of the country, little towns among 
the by-ways and hedges, out of harm's way, 
where the enemy could not reach them, and 
where strategic movements could be planned 
without molestation from the enemy, and from 
whence dashing surprises could be executed 
upon him without fear of a return of the compli- 
ment with interest. A policy which, the speaker 
said, was quite the reverse of that of the Union 
armies, as they were obliged to scatter in pro- 
portion as the Confederates concentrated, in 
order to garrison the points and occupy the 
country thus vacated. The argument looked 
plausible to the green ones, didn't it, reader ? It 
is always easy to make people believe what 
they want to believe. 



76 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE doctor's prize-ring ILLUSTRATION, 

e|l|UT at last the Doctor ^ave bis spell-bound 
Tj|i audience the benefit of a prize-ring illustra- 
i^ tion, which ran on this wise : He said " that 
the Southern champion had choice of 
ground, and the comer in the ring with his back 
to the sun, which compelled the Northern pugi- 
list to face the fiery orb, which he regarded 
quite an advantage, as he thought ' Sam ' could 
not long endure the hot blaze in his face. He 
described * Sam ' as a man of giant frame and 
strength, but awkward movements, and ques- 
tionable powers of endurance, a Goliath in ap- 
pearance, fearful to look upon or to hear, his 
voice like that of his Philistine prototype. But he 
had not the pluck, the heroism, the chivalry of 
his antagonist, and, indeed, could not have, for he 
was descended from the Roundheads of England, 
who in all their generations had been a pesti- 
lent and meddlesome race of fanatics wherever 
found, at home and abroad.' Not so with the 



PRIZE-RING ILLUSTRATION. 'J'J 

Southern champion. * Johnny ' came down from 
the Olympic heavens of the Enghsh Cavaliers^ 
brave, chivalrous, with small but compact frame, 
agile, confident, the very David of the Southern 
house of Israel." 

He said " the prize was the grandest ever bat- 
tled for among the battling nations. The fight 
in the first few rounds was a regular stand-up 
give-and-take. The first knock-down and first 
blood were awarded to 'Johnny' at Bull Run, 
or Manassas. After that he feinted, dodged and 
retreated, till at Richmond he got in a stunning 
blow on the giant, and ' sent him to grass.' After 
being well sponged up in the Washington cor- 
ner, by Abraham and Mac, his seconds, the giant 
came to time again, and a few more rounds were 
had, at Gettysburg, Fort Donaldson, Shiloh, 
Perryville, New Orleans and Vicksburg, where 
the little man of the South was repeatedly 
knocked down and roughly handled in chancery. 
'Johnny' tried once to suddenly flank 'Sam' 
and get first to the Washington corner, which 
well-nigh proved fatal to his resources of strength 
and endurance. 

" After this the programme of the little David 
was changed to dodging, retreating, falling, a la 
Tom Sayers ; but he Vv'as to put in a telling blow 
when he could, tapping the wind, closing the 



yS FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

sight, and drawing blood as much as possible, and 
when he couldn't, to depend mainly on avoiding 
blows, but keep on provoking them, thus leaving 
*Sam' to exhaust himself in 'beating the air,' 
as heavy blows given in the air are more hurtful 
and exhausting to the striker than when deliv- 
ered upon an object. David was to make feints 
and dodge, which would set the Northern Phil- 
istine in a rage after him around the ring, the 
one giving prodigious blows in the air, the other 
keeping out of harm's way." 

This sort of negative policy the learned, pious 
and patriotic Doctor claimed would "give vic- 
tory to the Southern champion, and he would 
bear the giant's head in triumph to the camp of 
Israel." 

Save the want of rhetorical dignity in the 
illustration, it was all well enough, only so it 
had been true to the facts, but unfortunately 
subsequent events went to show that the little 
wiry man of the South became exhausted by 
the dodging and retreating policy first, and went 
under at last, and the bloody sponge was thrown 
up in token of his defeat. 

Some time before this appearance of the divine 
orator a card appeared in the Houston press, 
over the Doctor's name, threatening dire ven- 
geance upon his slanderers, according to the 



THE WEALTHY PLANTERESS. 79 

code dtiello. In his speech he referred to the 
card, and then giving a Randolphian angle and 
shake to his dexter index finger said, with bitter 
venom, " that card is to stand till after the war, 
when there will be time to settle with my ene- 
mies." The moral disgust we felt at this vile 
utterance was simply unutterable. 

The next day a certain widow lady, owner of 
a large plantation and a hundred negroes, was 
in the store ; she was tall and straight, with sharp 
angular features, a dark Southern complexion, 
black hair and eyes in keeping, a masculine 
business turn of mind, and occupied perpendic- 
ular space in air, about five feet nine inches. 
Taken undivided her presence was rather com- 
manding. Approaching us at the counter, with 
quizzing eye, and an air of triumph, she said: 

" Well, Sir, how did you like the speech yes- 
terday?" 

Generally we had to think twice before speak- 
ing once, frequently three times, and then again 
keep up a heavy thinking, and not speak at all. 
As near as we can calculate we had about three 
thinks: First, who was the Doctor? second, who 
was the lady addressing us ? and third, who 
were we ? Then we replied : 

"Madam, I have no fault to find with the 
speech as a Confederate speech ; it was all well 



So FIVE YEARS IN^ TEXAS. 

enough in that regard. As a piece of oratory I 
admired many portions of it; as the effort of a 
politician on the stump, or of a jury advocate, 
I thought very well of it, but I did not approve 
the animus of the speaker when judged from 
the standpoint of a Christian divine." 

" Why, Sir, what do you mean ? " said the lady. 

" I mean. Madam, that the spirit of dueling 
is not the spirit of Christ." 

"The Doctor's remarks about the dueling 
card pleased me more than anything else," re- 
joined the lady. 

" That part of the Doctor's remarks I disap- 
proved most," we rejoined. 

" Well," she continued, " I am a professing 
Christian, and a member of the Baptist Church. 
I have several sons, and have always taught 
them to defend their characters according to the 
code of honor, and, Sir, if your ideas are correct 
then I confess I know very little about Chris- 
tianity." 

" Very likely. Madam, and I think none of us 
know much about the true spirit of it, the way 
we are going on. But, my dear lady, what are 
the Doctor's grievances when compared with 
those of Christ and his Apostles? and yet what 
would you think of the idea that they carried 
deadly weapons to defend their characters and 



THE WEALTHY PLANTERESS. 8 1 

persons with? Preposterous, do you say? 
* The servant is not above his Lord.' If the 
Master might not do so how much less the ser- 
vant. And furthermore, how does the Doctor's 
case stand in the constellated light of the Mas- 
ter's declaration, * My kingdom is not of this 
world, else my servants would fight' " 

" Well," said the lady again, in a half despond- 
ing tone, "if that's the true doctrine I don't 
know what we should do if we should under- 
take to carry it out in this world. But then I 
can't believe it, and that's all there is about it 
with me, I can't believe it." 

" There's the trouble, Madam, we don't really 
and practically believe what we profess except 
when the truth conserves our self-interest, or 
our convenience. When otherwise we can not 
trust God for results, but take matters out of his 
hands and control them ourselves, and for our- 
selves. And behold what dirty, wicked work we 
make of it sometimes." 

Just then the wealthy planteress left, as though 
with a new idea in her head and heart. 

But to quote the Doctor a little more. He 
said : " After the war I intend giving myself to 
the legal profession, and shall not return to the 
pulpit. I am keeping a spotted book. All per- 
sons who refuse to go into tlie army, or evade 
6 



82 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS/ 

the conscript law by any dodge or subterfuge 
whatever, their names shall go down in the 
spotted book, to receive my special attention 
after the war, personally, professionally, and 
politically, and I swear it here and now; they 
shall be hunted in town, in the city, through 
the wilderness, out of the country, and perad- 
venture a worse fate may befall them I " 

He said : " If Southern independence can not be 
achieved I would prefer to go under the English 
or French flag. I could bear being whipped by 
the Mexicans, by England, by France, or by 
any other people under the sun— even by the 
Hottentots — but to be subjugated by a meddle- 
some pusillanimous race that says ccow for cow, 
is intolerable to the last degree." 

Two years after this speech, when the war 
was over, we met the Doctor at the dinner-table 
of the City Hotel in New Orleans, most slouch- 
fully dressed, and with an equally slouchful look; 
at least so imagination played through our 
optics. He was on a pilgrimage to Washington 
to swallow the hated '* iron-clad," and obtain his 
pardon. We thought appearances indicated that 
he needed a pardon bad, both from Washington 
and from a higher source. No man in Texas 
had done more to promote secession. He was 
a violent denunciator of all who did not sue- 



THE DOCTOR AND THE JUDGE. S^ 

cumb to his way of thinking, and tacitly, at 
least, gave countenance to the mob spirit against 
them. 

We say, is it strange that laymen should hold 
human life of little value when their spiritual 
leaders do the same. Here was a man who bore 
the tri-colored character of divine, educator and 
military captain, merging the whole in the low, 
despicable and intensely wicked character of 
duelist. 

It is only two years since the writer was 
back in Texas a few months, and while there a 
political meeting was held at the city of H., one 

night. At that meeting Judge was one of 

the speakers, and in his speech made sorne caus- 
tic allusions to *' scallawags " which the Doctor 
construed as intended by the speaker for him, 
whereupon the next day he addressed a note to 
the Judge, by the hand of his friend, demanding 
an explanation, which was refused because of the 
arrogant tone of the language in which the de- 
mand was made. A second note was dispatched, 
repeating the demand, and closing in case the 
Judge again declined explanation, with a chal- 
lenge to fight, conceding to him choice of weap- 
ons and place. To this he declined as before, 
and for similar reasons; also, declined accept- 
ance of the challenge on the grounds that, first, 



84 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

he had conscientious scruples, and second, it 
was a violation of the laws of the land, but that 
if attacked he should defend himself in accord- 
ance with the law and right of self-defense. 

Now, at this stage of the affair the Doctor was 
reduced to the alternatives of yielding the point 
of honor or shooting on sight. He chose the 
latter. So, with divers and sundry weapons of 
death — a rifle, a double-barreled shot-gun, a 
six-shooter, and a pair of derringers, with, per- 
haps, a bowie-knife, meaning by the medley of 
arms to observe the nice point of using the 
same weapon the Judge might have when they 
met — he took position on Main Street, where 
his game had to pass in going from his house to 
his office, and waited there two or three hours, 
but the Judge did not appear. By this time a 
larsfe crowd of the Doctor's friends and neutral 
spectators had gathered round, and the enraged 
divine — or colonel, as he was then called — 
stepped upon a dry goods box and harangued 
the excited crowd, closing up with the historic 
and threadbare denunciation of the Judge as *' a 
scoundrel, a liar and a coward," and he would 
shoot him when and wherever he saw him. He 
then retired to private quarters, to be flattered 
by a few friends for his brave and chivalrou? 
conduct. Of course the Judge was a scoundrel 



THE DOCTOR AND THE JUDGE. 8$ 

a liar and a coward, because the Colonel said so, 
in the God-defying spirit of hate and murder. 
He could not be a good man, an honest man, or 
a brave or true man, after this ; no, the Colonel 
had said it before men and angels, and laughing 
devils, and the universe was bound to credit his 
ipse dixit. The parties, however, were soon 
reconciled by the good and pacific offices of the 
Masonic fraternity, of which they proved to be 
members. The Judge said he did not intend 
his remarks on scalawags for the Colonel, and 
did not know the Colonel was a Mason. And 
the Colonel said he did not know the Judge was 
a Mason, or he might have acted differently; 
that the Judge was a gentleman, and he certainly 
felt bound to make the amende honorable. How 
changed! The furious madman would have 
killed him but a few hours ago, but suddenly he 
becomes as ** gentle as a sucking dove." O, 
poor deluded devotee of the dueling code, thou 
wouldst have imbrued thy hands in the blood of 
thy fellow, and on thine own mistaken suspicion! 
Well, God pity thee till thou learnest better, and 
ceasest thy barbarity of soul ! 



S6 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 



CHAPTER IX. 

BABEL OF TONGUES. — SAM HOUSTON, 
i. 

HE center of attraction to all political parties 
In the South was slavery; and no party- 
could expect to exist with any respectable 
dimensions, or to possess any organic force 
in public affairs that did not gravitate in that 
direction. It was the Banquo's Ghost of every 
occasion and emergency. It is true, however, 
that there was a weak, maudlin, and mawkish 
anti-slaveryism here and there, through the 
South ; but it had no bowels of effective demon- 
stration ; no Inherent potency of melting mercy 
and just indignation, to stem the counter cur- 
rent, and throw off the shackles self-imposed. 
But when the South had drifted on the shoals 
of secession the Issues were changed, and large 
and respectable masses of the people preferred 
the Union to slavery ; but still the Institution 
dominated everything In the shape of political 
action. The situation now was attended with 
schismatic sentiment and covert action against 



BABEL OF TONGUES. 8/ 

it, as witnessed in the babel of tongues on the 
question of secession. 

There were different parties in Texas, repre- 
senting many different views and measures, to 
meet the new monster now emerging from the 
deep waters of the nation's life. 

First and foremost, the old original died-in- 
the-wool, South Carolina, John C. Calhoun, 
nullification party, which, though fewest in num- 
bers, yet embraced in its ranks, most of the 
talent, wealth, and fashion of the South. This 
party believed in secession per se, for its own 
sake ; and had been plotting and planning for 
long years to make it an accomplished fact. 
They thought the suitable occasion had now 
arrived for striking the effective blow in its be- 
half. They could now fire the public heart, 
through the medium of slavery, and win the 
prize of Southern independence. 

There was anotlier party, more numerous, 
who accepted the doctrine of secession as the 
dernier condition — that the rights of the South 
could not otherwise be preserved inviolate. 
They argued, " Wait till the commission of an 
overt act by the new Administration — Con- 
gressional or Executive interference— then will ' 
be time enough, and better excuse in the face 
of the nation and of mankind, for secession." 



SS FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

A third party believed in preserving the Union 
at almost all hazards ; even with the loss of the 
peculiar rights of the South. They argued and 
urged that Southern rights could be maintained 
by fighting for them, if need be " in the Union 
and under the old flag." This party was quite 
numerous. 

A fourth party said, but dare not say it very 
loud, '' Let slavery slide, if need be it is not 
worth shedding blood over, but let us have the 
Union, Besides, the sentiment of all mankind 
is against our servile system, and history will 
dig its grave at last.'* This party was in the 
minority of all. 

Still a fifth party opposed secession under any 
circumstances, on the ground of had policy, and 
inexpediency. They said, secession is suicide, 
the very course to pursue by which to swamp 
and lose our rights. Secession will be a stu- 
pendous failure, and we shall lose by it the very 
thing we propose thereby to defend and save. 
Prophetic words, which subsequent events liter- 
ally fulfilled. 

This was old General Sam Houston's position. 
He led this party in Texas. He spoke his mind 
freely anywhere, and in the face of threats, 
denunciations and mobs. We remember the 
interest and excitement manifest a few days 



SAM HOUSTON. 89 

before the vote on secession was taken in Texas, 
on the occasion when the "old man eloquent" 
of the " Lone Star State " came down to Gal- 
veston from Houston, to address the people on 
the exciting topic. The rumor spread through 
the city that Houston had come and would 
speak the next day at eleven o'clock A. M., 
from the second gallery of the Tremont House. 
It was evident there was a deep undercurrent of 
excitement, with a glassy calmness on the sur- 
face, as in " still waters that run deep." There 
was an unsearchable depth in each man's eye, 
like the shadowy stillness preceding the burst- 
ing storm. In the morning of the day when he 
was to speak a self-constituted committee of 
several leading citizens waited on the General 
at his quarters, and warned him not to attempt 
making a speech that day, as they feared serious 
disturbance and personal harm to him. They 
said : " General, you know we are your personal 
friends, and have been your political supporters 
heretofore, but we are opposed to your views on 
secession ; still we don't want to see you harmed." 
The General replied with characteristic dig- 
nity : ''Gentlemen, I thank you for your personal 
considerations, but I have seen stormy times 
in Texas before, and I have seen my personal 
friends tremble for my safety before; but, gen- 



90 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

tlemen, I shall make the speech to-day at eleven 
o'clock A. M., as already given out, from the 
upper gallery of the Tremont House — should 
be pleased to see you there, gentlemen, to hear, 
and if necessary to help keep order." 

One of the parties to the interview came into 
our office and reported what had passed. The 
writer had then never seen the General, and felt 
a strong *desire to go and hear the " old war- 
horse," but concluded, being a stranger in the 
country, and not wishing to be caught in the 
presence of a mob, not to go. Eleven o'clock 
came, and twelve, and some one came in and 
said : " Houston is speaking, and has been for 
an hour, and all is quiet." We went and heard 
the balance of his speech. After seeing and 
hearing him a few minutes we did not wonder 
he was not disturbed by a mob. 

There he stood, an old man of seventy years, 
on the balcony ten feet above the heads of the 
thousands assembled to hear him, where every 
eye could scan his magnificent form, six feet 
and three inches high, straight as an arrow, with 
deep set and penetrating eyes, looking out from 
under heavy and thundering eyebrows, a high 
open forehead, with something of the infinite in- 
tellectual shadowed there, crowned with thin 
white locks, partly erect, seeming to give capii- 



SAM HOUSTON. 9 1 

lary conduction to the electric fluid used by his 
massive brain, and a voice of the deep basso 
tone, which shook and commanded the soul of 
the hearer. Adding to all this a powerful man- 
ner, made up of deliberation, self-possession and 
restrained majesty of action, leaving the hearer 
impressed with the feeling that more of his 
power was hidden than revealed. Thus appeared 
Sam Houston on this grand occasion, equal and 
superior to it, as he always was to every other. 
He paralyzed the arm of the mobocrat by his 
personal presence, and it was morally impossible 
for him to be mobbed in Texas, and if not there 
then not anywhere; no, not even in that hot 
country which, as the Boston divine said, " mod- 
esty forbids us to name," and which, in this 
respect, is the best synonym for it, and rival of 
it, we can imagine. 



92 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 



CHAPTER X. 

SAM Houston's speech. 

K ^HE drift of Houston's speech was — the inex- 
] '^ pcdiency and bad policy of secession. 

He told them they could secure without 
secession what they proposed to secure by 
it, and would certainly lose through it. He gave 
the greater force to his declarations by appeal- 
ing to them to know if he had not generally 
been right in the past history of Texas, when 
any great issue was at stake. Told them he 
made Texas and they knew it, and it was not 
immodest for him to say so ; that the history of 
old Sam Houston was the history of Texas, and 
they knew it ; that he fought and won the battle 
of annexation, and they knew it; that he origi- 
nally organized and established the Republic of 
Texas, and they knew it ; that he wrested Texas 
from the despotic sway of Santa Anna ; that he 
commanded at San Jacinto, where the great 
Mexican leader was whipped and captured, and 
they knew it. 



SAM HOUSTON S SPEECH. 93 

"Some of you," he continued, "opposed the 
annexation of Texas to the United States, and 
I suppose have never forgiven me, even to this 
day, but I appeal to your sober judgments if, as 
it were, the very next day after annexation be- 
came history, Texas did not enter upon a career 
of fortune she had never realized before. I ap- 
peal to you for the frank confession that you 
have always prospered most when you have 
listened to my counsels. I am an old man now. 
I knew you in infancy, took you and dandled 
you on my knee, nursed you through all your 
baby ailments, and with great care and solici- 
tude watched and aided your elevation to politi- 
cal and commercial manhood. Will you now 
reject these last counsels of your political father, 
and squander your political patrimony in riotous 
adventure, which I now tell you, and with some- 
thing of prophetic ken, will land you in fire and 
rivers of blood. 

"Some of you laugh to scorn the idea of 
bloodshed as a result of secession, and jocularly 
propose to drink all the blood that will ever 
flow in consequence of it! But let me tell you 
what is coming on the heels of secession. The 
time will come when your fathers and husbands, 
your sons and brothers, will be herded together 
like sheep and cattle at the point of the bayo- 



94 FJVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

net; and your mothers and wives, and sisters 
and daughters, will ask, Where are they? and 
echo will answer, where ? 

"You may," said he, "after the sacrifice of 
countless millions of treasure, and hundreds of 
thousands of precious lives, as a bare possibil- 
ity, win Southern independence, if God be not 
against you; but I doubt it. I tell you that, 
while I believe with you in the doctrines of State 
rights, the North is determined to preserve this 
Union. They are not a fiery impulsive people 
as you are, for they live in cooler climates. But 
when they begin to m.ove in a given direction, 
where great interests are involved, such as the 
present issues before the country, they move 
with the steady momentum and perseverance of 
a mighty avalanche, and what I fear is they will 
overwhelm the South with ignoble defeat, and I 
would say, amen, to the suffering and defeat I 
have pictured if the present difficulties Could find 
no other solution, and that too by peaceable 
means. I believe they can. Otherwise I would 
say, ' Better die freemen than live slaves.' 

" Whatever course my State shall determine 
to pursue my faith in State supremacy and State 
rights will carry my sympathies with her. And, 
as Henry Clay, my political opponent on an- 
nexation said, when asked why he allowed his 



COLONEL MOORE's REGIMENT. 95 

son to go into the Mexican War, ' My country, 
right or wrong,' so I say, my State, right or 
wrong." 

We noticed several times the very men ap- 
plauding the speech who had opposed the 
speaker and the speaking in the morning. Thei 
power of General Houston over a Texas au- 
dience was magical to the last degree, and 
doubtless well understood by himself; hence he 
feared no mobs. 

During the first year of the war Colonel 
Moore had organized a splendid regiment of 
eleven hundred young men, volunteers mostly 
from Galveston, finely equipped, of which Sam 
Houston, Jr., was a member. They were on dress 
parade daily, and presented a charming appear- 
ance. It was as fine a regiment as went to the war 
from any section of the country. The Colonel was 
justly proud of them, and fond of exhibiting 
their superior drill and ** dress " to the public, and 
particularly to old military men. They fought 
^eir first battle at Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, 
as the Confederates called it. But before leaving 
the island for the seat of war the Colonel invited 
General Houston to review his regiment. Now 
Judge Campbell, of one of the judicial districts 
of Texas, and Williamson S. Oldham, member 
of the Confederate Congress, had been the old 



96 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS 

General's bitter enemies during the canvass on 
secession. They had followed him night and 
day through the State. On the day set for him 
to review and put the regiment through some 
military evolutions, the General was on hand at 
the hour and place. This called out a large 
concourse of people to witness the performance ; 
the day was sunny and beautiful ; the hour ten 
in the forenoon. The regiment was in complete 
uniform and perfectly armed; their arms glis- 
tened in the sunbeams as they stood in perfect 
dress, and at "present arms," when the "hero 
of San Jacinto," supported by their Colonel, 
stood in front. He was the hero of San Jacinto 
sure enough, for there he stood, in the same 
military suit he had worn in 1836, at the battle 
of San Jacinto, when Santa Anna was captured; 
his pants tucked in the tops of military boots; 
suspended at his side was the same old sword, 
and on his head was a weather-beaten, light- 
colored, broad-brimmed planter hat, the left side 
buttoned up to the crown. There he stood, the 
very impersonation of the olden times. It was 
a sight for sensation. All eyes were now upon 
him, some of them dimmed with tears, and 
many a throat of soldier and spectator was chok- 
ing down feeling unutterable — the writer with 
the rest. Not a word had yet passed the Gen- 



REVIEW OF COLONEL MOORE'S REGIMENT. 9/ 

eral's lips, but now the Colonel passed him his 
own sword and told him to proceed. Then 
came 

1 Order No. I. — " Shoulder arms," 
• Order No. 2.—" Right about face." The 
regiment now facing the rear, the General cried 
out in stentorian tones of sarcasm : " Do you 
see anything of Judge Campbell or Williamson 
S. Oldham there?" "No," was the emphatic 
reply. ** Well," said the General, "they are not 
found at the front, nor even at the rear." 
Order No. 3. — "Right about, front face." 
Order No. 4. — " Eyes right. Do you see 
anything of Judge Campbell's son here ? " " No, 
he has gone to Paris to school," responded the 
regiment. 

Order No. 5. — " Eyes left. Do you see any- 
thing of young Sam Houston here?" "Yes," 
was the thrilling response. 

Order No. 6. — "Eyes front. Do you see 
anything of old Sam Houston here?" By this 
time the climax of excitement was reached, and 
regiment and citizens together responded, in 
thunder tones, "Yes!" and then united in a 
triple round of three times three and a tiger for 
the old hero. Thereupon he returned the Colo- 
nel his sword, with the remark, " There, Colonel, 
that will do, I leave you to manage the rest of 
7 



98 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

the maneuvering," and retired from dress pa- 
rade. 

The old General died at Huntsville, Texas, a 
year or so before the war closed, but he lived 
long enough to see fulfilled what he had pre- 
dicted in his speeches, and to receive the 
acknowledgment from 'some of his bitterest 
opponents that he was right. His lone widow 
followed him to the grave, by yellow fever, De- 
cember 5, 1867. Thus ended the career of the 
Hercules of the Lone Star State, and she will 
never do herself honor, and the name of Hous- 
ton justice, until she has a monument for him 
in granite or marble, surmounted with his statue, 
or an equestrian statue, in the metropolis of 
the State. 



ARGUMENTS ON SECESSION. 99 



CHAPTER XI. 

ARGUMENTS ON SECESSION IN OUTLINE. 

'N the platform of secession there was barely- 
one plank on which all parties could stand in 
agreement, and we give it in the following 
words, to wit : 

** Resolved^ That the rights of the South are 
seriously threatened, and in imminent danger 
of actual invasion by the North." 

This was the solemn affirmation of the whole 
South. But on the question, What shall be 
done, what measures adopted, what course pur- 
sued, to make the most and the best out of the 
situation ? the people were not a little divided. 
We will recite a few of the arguments in outline 
used by the different factions. 

The original secessionist argued from the 
Constitution itself, that the States out of which 
the Union was formed were independent sover- 
eignties antecedent to the Union, and all State 
elements and powers were reserved to the sov- 



100 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

ereignties that were not expr^ss/y surrendered to 
the General Government; that the Constitution 
was the instrument and servant of the Union, 
and was not intended to reflect its power back 
upon the reserved rights of the States. That 
the Constitution did not forbid secession in ex- 
press terms, ergo^ the right of secession was 
negatively implied by the Constitution ; that its 
silence on the subject was, and could be, no bar 
to the right ; that it could not take notice of the 
subject at all, as it is not in the nature of such 
an instrument /^r^^ to anticipate its own repeal 
or dissolution. 

The suggestion to "wait for an overt act," was 
answered by saying that the Union was like a 
business copartnership for certain purposes, and 
when one member of the firm declares his pur- 
pose to swindle the other whenever opportunity 
serves, it is the privilege, the right, the duty, of 
the partner thus placed in jeopardy not to wait 
for the "overt act" of swindling to transpire, 
but to forestall and prevent it by breaking up 
the compact at once ; that the Union was sub- 
stantially such a copartnership, or compact, for 
purposes of mutual aid, and for mutual protec- 
tion against foreign invasion. 

This sort of argument appeared plausible, 
and generally had the effect to silence dissenting 



ARGUMENTS OF SECESSION IN OUTLINE. 10 1 

parties. The reply to it was considered insuf- 
ficient, that, though the Republican party had 
succeeded in placing Mr. Lincoln in the presi- 
dential chair, yet he could do nothing inimical 
to the rights of the South. His oath of office 
would deter him, even if personally inclined to 
damage the South, and though he had said in 
his series of discussions with Stephen A. Doug- 
las, in Illinois — "This government and country 
can not remain half free and half slave." No, 
secession, unconditional, immediate, bore down 
all opposition, and Texas with her ship of state 
and canvass spread, her sails flying, and the 
**Lone Star" floating at top-mast, and all on 
board except a few stanch Union men, stood 
out for the deep sea of secession and rebellion. 
She foundered, and with the Confederate armada 
of States went to the bottom ; and now the Union 
wreckers are trying to fish her up, and back into 
place again. 



102 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 



CHAPTER XII. . 

TEXAS NEVER INVADED. 

fflNLIKE the other Southern States, Texas 
I was never invaded and devastated by the 

^ Union armies. Considered in the light of 
a necessary evil, as a terrible educator, or 
rough civilizer for the barbarian element in Tex- 
as society, it might have been a good thing, per- 
haps, if she had been overrun, and this low ele- 
ment thoroughly subjugated, and made feel and 
understand that there was another force in the 
world besides Texas outlawry — that of law and 
order. But all things considered, it is probably 
as well she was saved from such a scourging. 
The innocent would have suffered with the guil- 
ty, and many lives and much property been sac- 
rificed. 

Texas was never whipped in spirit, only nomi- 
nally whipped, in being surrendered by the offi- 
cial act of General E. Kirby Smith. Like " dog 



FEELING OF THE PEOPLE. IO3 

Tray," she was found in bad company. Indeed, 
so far from being whipped in spirit was she, that 
the proposition was seriously made and enter- 
tained, after Lee's surrender, that Texas could 
carry on the war by herself, and alone win what j 
the whole South had failed to achieve together. 
General Magruder issued a bombastic proclama- 
tion to this effect. But the more sensible people 
understood it as a shrewd blind on his part, to 
facilitate his escape to Mexico, which he made 
immediately after. 

By no means would we leave the impression 
that the whole population felt this way. The 
intelligent and better classes plainly saw, and 
admitted their cause was irretrievably lost, and in 
justice to them we must say they were willing 
to accept the situation in good faith, and govern 
themselves accordingly. One of this class said 
to the writer: "I have fought the fight, been 
whipped, and now I submit and say, the United 
States Government is good enough for me, and 
hereafter I am as good a Union man as the best." 

But we must say of the other class that swal- 
lowed Magruder's proclamation, that they did 
not accept the situation in good faith, have not 
yet, and never will so long as they can keep the 
waters muddy. For the benefit of this class, if 
they could have suffered alone, one could have 



104 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

desired Sherman's or Sheridan's army to pass 
through the country and give it a touch of de- 
vastation. You wish to know what class they 
were. We give the following description : They 
were a mixed class with very little of the good 
in the mixture. They didn't have horns on their 
heads, nor were they cloven -footed except in 
character ; and in this respect they bore strong 
resemblance to their father, the old ''cloven- 
foot" himself 

The masses of them wore spurs on their heels, 
generally the immense wheel-spur, and though 
they were not born with them on, yet they might 
as well have been, for they not only rode in 
them, but walked in them, ate in them, and slept 
in them. Their clanking as they walked was like 
a man in chains. They wore belts around the 
waist, suspending one or two revolvers and a 
bowie knife; were experts in the saddle, had a 
reckless dare-evil look, and were always ready 
for whisky and a big chew of tobacco, and the 
handwriting of passion and appetite was all over 
them. They were cow-boys from tlie wild woods 
and prairies, and sons of the low class planters, 
with a strong sprinkling of the low white trash, 
clay-eaters, so plentiful in the Atlantic Southern 
States. 

In such a flock the one that has killed his 



FEELING OF THE PEOPLE. IO5 

man or more is hero and leader. This class of 
desperadoes were tools of the more accomplish- 
ed, genteel, oily-tongued, respectable scoundrels 
in society, who sat behind the screens in the 
green-room of iniquity, and were the wire-pull- 
ing prompters of crime — such as intimidation, 
robbery, assassination, and so on. Especially was 
this the case during the war. It is impossible 
to understand, without experience, the situation 
of unmitigated horror created by such surround- 
ings. One can talk or write about it, and the 
hearer or reader can imagine, but experience 
alone realizes the full horror. 

We have said that Texas was never invaded, 
but she was pretty thoroughly blockaded on the 
coast; and artillery duels between land and sea 
frequently took place, but seldom to Confeder- 
ate disadvantage. General Hebert was first in 
command of the Department of Texas, but he 
proved to be a man of no military force or prac- 
tical genius, though a West Pointer, and had en- 
joyed the advantages of military associations in 
Europe, the reflex of which appeared rather 
to damage his usefulness than otherwise. He 
brought with him so much European red-tape- 
ism, and being a constitutional ape, that he pre- 
ferred red-top boots, and a greased rat-tail mous- 
tache, with a fine equippage, and a suite of wait- 



I06 FIVE YEARS IN _ TEXAS. 

ers, to the use of good, practical common sense. 
Cannon, heavy siege guns, that had cost weeks 
of time, and thousands of money to transport 
from Virginia by rivers, through floods, storm 
and mud, lay on the wharves at Galveston, for 
months, waiting orders from the commandant to 
be placed in position on the fortifications erected 
at divers points on the island beach. Everybody 
became tired and disgusted with the General and 
his policy. He was too much of a military cox- 
comb to suit the ideas and ways of a pioneer 
country ; besides, he was suspected of cowardice. 
In May, 1862, the naval fleet outside made 
a demand for the surrender of the city, giving 
four days for a decision. The demand was re- 
fused. It was believed, of course, that Hebert 
would at least make a show of fight for the repu- 
tation of it, if for nothing more, and that a hand- 
some artillery duel might be expected any hour. 
This expectation was strengthened by an order 
for all non-combatants to leave the island in a 
given time. The next few days witnessed a 
general stampede of people and valuables up 
country, the writer and his family with the mul- 
titude, to save them from the dangers of flying 
shot and shell. Every dray and available ve- 
hicle was brought into requisition to convey 
people and goods away from the city. Any- 



CAPTURE OF GALVESTON. 10/ 

thing that could freight a thousand pounds or 
more, could easily command five dollars a load, 
four miles to the bridge, where the cars stopped. 
It was hurrying times. 

On the fourth or fifth day a gun-boat ran in 
and opened fire on " Fort Point," near the en- 
trance to the inside harbor. According to secret 
order, previously given, the fort responded with 
one gun, and then it was abandoned. Mean- 
while the General and staff, with most of the 
troops, were making safe retreat to Virginia Point, 
four miles down the bay, on the main land 
side. Thus the city was left to be occupied by 
the Union forces. The naval fleet entered the 
bay in peaceful triumph, and no doubt they felt a 
contempt for the Confederate General in com- 
mand, who had so ignominiously fled, when 
they looked around and saw the facilities he had 
for defense. 

The intervening space between city and rail- 
road bridge was neutral ground, not occupied by 
either party. Non-combatants were freely allow- 
ed passes to and from the city. This cowardly 
flight so incensed the people against Hebert, 
that they petitioned for his removal, and it was 
granted. In the fall of 1862 he was replaced by 
General Magruder — the gay, dashing, and fes- 
tive Magruder ; and this suited Texas. But Ma- 



I08 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

gruder soon saw that Texas expected him to re- 
trieve the disgraceful loss of Galveston, the me- 
tropolis of the State. 

So in a quiet and undemonstrative way, with- 
out giving out to the expectant public either 
time or mode, he prepared to recapture the Island 
City and the fleet in her bay* of which the cele- 
brated and staunch "Harriet Lane" was the flag- 
ship, and stood at the wharf in central raking 
attitude to the city. 

A few miles below the city of Houston, on 
Buffalo Bayou, at a point of narrows, where the 
huee forest trees on either bank locked arms 

o 

across the waters, and the shade thereof made 
still deeper by the mustang vine, and the ever 
creeping old ivy, might have been seen three or 
four old steamer hulks being transformed into 
rams and gun-boats, whose sides were barrica- 
ded with compressed cotton bales. And this 
was the naval force with which to attack Uncle 
Sam's heavy iron-dads. Magruder had called 
to his side for consultation, upon the feasibility 
of his daring enterprise, his predecessor in com- 
mand, who laughed him to scorn, as a dreaming 
fanatic, with more courage than brains. But not 
being disheartened by Hebert's wet blanket, he 
prosecuted his plans and purpose to complete- 
ness of preparation. Hebert left, and went to 



PREPARING TO RETAKE GALVESTON. IO9 

some private retreat up country, where he would 
not be considered by any implication, of word or 
circumstance, to be partaker in so wild and 
reckless a scheme. 

Outside it was not yet known what time Ma- 
gruder would make the attack. The secret was ^ 
yet in his own breast, or, at most, was confined 
to himself and staff. But a few days prior to 
the event, it was rumored that Ma^ruder intend- 
ed making the State a new-year's present. So 
on the 31st day of December, A. D. 1862, the 
fleet weighed anchor, and proceeded, while yet 
daylight remained, down the bayou to Red Fish 
bar, within fifteen or twenty miles of the Federal 
fleet, and there anchored and waited till the dark 
hour of morning should come, named in "spe- 
cial orders." 

The ugly-looking crafts were manned by vol- 
unteers for the occasion, and though never yet 
in a fight, they had even more than the deter- 
mined spirit of the " veterans." They were spoil- 
ing for the fray. One fear only served to damp- 
en their ardor. The waters might be flowing at 
low tide on Red Fish when the hour came to 
pass it, and they could not pass it before, for fear 
of discovery by the Federal fleet, to whom they 
intended a complete surprise. ' 

The land forces were at Virginia Point, ready 



no FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

to cross the two-mile bridge, and move up the 
island toward the city. Just at the dying of the 
old year, and the birth of the new, the two forces 
began to move ; the one by water, the other by 
land, with flying artillery. The rolling wheels 
were muffled in the sand, and with silent roll 
and tread they moved on, and took-well chosen 
positions. The two forces were to co-operate. 
They were to strike together at the moment 
when the moon should be gone to rest, which 
was at five o'clock in the morning. The land 
forces were there, and ready to open fire a<" the 
time, but waited till a few minutes after, hoping 
to hear the signal gun from the fleet first. But 
not so ; the fleet then was hanging on Red Fish in 
low tide, as feared. Fatal detention, if not soon 
released, and taking part in the action now pro- 
gressing. They could hear the booming can- 
non miles away, and in panting mood, and with 
desperate effort, they float once more, and steam 
to the scene of action, two hours late — but ''bet- 
ter late than never." Victory was trembling in 
the balance between the contending forces. One 
ram made direct for the " Harriet Lane," firing 
as she went, and struck her obliquely on the 
hind quarter. The rigging of the two vessels 
became tangled together so that they could not 
separate. The boarders rushed upon the deck 



GALVESTON RETAKEN. Ill 

of the "Harriet Lane" with cutlasses, knives, 
and navy shooters, and demanded her surrender. 
But her commander. Captain Wainwright, re- 
fused. And then they fought, bravely fought, 
hand' to hand, on both sides, until Wainwright 
fell, shot through the heart, on his own deck,| 
saying as he expired : " Tell mother I defended 
the 'Harriet' as long as I could." Sherman, his 
first lieutenant, was mortally wounded. By this 
time the deck was running with blood from the 
dead and dying, and the white flag was run up 
to the masthead, and the whole fleet in the bay 
thereby surrendered. Meanwhile one of the 
Confederate gun-boats had sunk, being struck 
by a cannon-ball below water mark. One of 
Magruder's couriers was at this moment carry- 
ing an order to the troops to cease fighting and 
retreat; and another courier rushed to head- 
quarters with the news of the surrender, and the 
General ordered him placed under arrest for 
bringing a false report. But he was soon re- 
leased, for, sure enough, it was 8 o'clock, the vic- 
tory was won, and the "New-Year's gift was 
made." 

Touching incidents sometimes occur on such 
occasions. There was one deeply so on this oc- 
casion. General Sherman, whose history ran 
back to the stirring times of the Texas Repub- 



112 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

lie, was in command of the Confederate ram that 
fought the *' Harriet Lane." Lieutenant Sher- 
man, just fallen on her deck, was his son. There 
they had met in deadly strife, father and son, the 
latter mortally hurt, and life fast ebbing away. 
But they did not recognize each other till the 
bloody contest was over, and then, at the mo- 
ment of recognition, the son exclaims in feeble 
tones: "O, is that you, father? and have we 
been fighting each other ? The day is lost, and 
I am dying now, father! Can I not have the 
holy sacrament to my comfort before I die?" 
We will not attempt to describe the agony of 
that father's heart, as he bent to embrace his 
dying boy, and to say, "Yes, my son; O, my 
darling son ! " The sacrament was given and 
taken together by living father and dying son, 
who in one short hour afterward as each said — 
*' Forgive me, father," and " Forgive me, my 
son" — breathed his life out sweetly, lying on 
his father's bosom. The next day a solemn 
military procession, with soft and reverent tread, 
passed to the cemetery, where the father him- 
self read the sublime service of the Episcopal 
Church — of which father and son were both 
members — over his boy's grave. Solemn sa- 
lutes were fired in honor of the noble dead. 
The victory and the defeat were alike forgotten, 



VICTORY AT SABINE PASS. II3 

and regretted for the day, under the sublime 
touch of a human scene so tender, so grandly 
holy ! We know the father well, a good man, 
though a rebel. 
^ The news of the victory passed over the State 
with an electric thrill, and gave the people an ele- 
vation of spirits, from which they never fully came 
down, even at the close of the war. This, with 
an easy victory obtained at Sabine Pass, about 
the same time, by an Irish company of artillery 
in fortifications, by which a fleet was repulsed, 
and one or two of the largest vessels disabled 
and captured, gave Texas somewhat of a feeling 
of invincibility. 

8 



114 X'lVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



NICAR.4GUA SMITH. 



I J HE next day after the retaking of Galves- 
I f ton, another sensation occurred, but of an 
entirely different character, showing other 
phases of human nature, and developing a 
different class of feelings. The circumstances 
were as follows : That day a fleet of transports 
hove in sight outside, just from New Orleans, 
bringing fifteen thousand troops,, to reinforce the 
small garrison already there — one or two regi- 
ments. These troops belonged to General 
Banks' Department, and were sent to Galves- 
ton to commence operations on a larger scale 
than had ever been attempted before. It was an 
earnest purpose and part of a general plan for 
the subjugation of the " Lone Star " State. They 
were to make Galveston the Gulf base of opera- 
tions, and penetrate inland to Houston, and thus 
up the Texas Central Railroad into the interior 
of the country, forming a junction with the ex- 



NICARAGUA SMITH. 



"5 



pedltion coming in from the Red River way, in 
accordance with plans traced on miHtary maps. 
This would create a diversion, and compel the 
Texas forces to remain at home, and not be sent 
to fight Banks' main expedition. The scheme 
was doubtless a good one in its conception, and 
looked like the scheme of Grant and Sherman 
to break that portion of the Confederate back- 
bone, lying west of the Mississippi. More than 
this, it was a part of the grand whole devised 
by them for crushing every part of the monster 
east and west of the Father of Waters. 

The fleet knew nothing of the retaking of Gal- 
veston the day before. So they sent in a small 
craft with a few men, to herald their coming. 
The forerunner suspected nothing but what all 
was right till they reached the landing, where 
they were taken in charge by Confederate hands. 
The pilot proved to be a man who had volun- 
teered in the Confederate army at the opening of 
the war, and was placed on sentinel duty at Boli- 
var Point, across the bay from Galveston, and 
one foggy night he stole a boat and deserted to 
the fleet outside, some months before. His name 
was Smith, but he bore the significant and his- 
toric name by which he was familiarly known on 
Galveston Island, of " Nicaragua" Smith. He 
had been with Walker in his filibustering expe- 



Il6 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

dition against Nicaragua, He was one of the 
worst desperadoes ever known in all that coun- 
try, though so far he had managed to escape the 
hands of justice. But now, at last, he was 
caught as a deserter, and acting as pilot to the 
enemy, conducting him to the place and scenes 
he was so familiar with. The United States 
flag was still flying on the Custom House in 
plain view of the fleet. The deception at first 
was perfect, and the Confederate authorities 
hoped to play the game out, and capture the 
whole fleet, so they sent out true and trusty 
men in Federal uniform and equippage, to in- 
vite and conduct them in. But something raised 
suspicion— *-the want of proper salutes and sig- 
nals, also credentials from the Commodore of 
the " Harriet Lane " fleet, now captured. The 
Commodore was blown up in an attempt to 
blow up one of the vessels after the surrender, 
and which was contrary to the usages of war. 
On being questioned at the flag ship, suspi- 
cion was confirmed. The leader in charge was 
detained as an exchange host for Nicaragua 
Smith. The exchange never came. Smith was 
court-martialed, found guilty of inexcusable de- 
sertion, and sentenced to be shot to death the 
next day. When standing in front of the twelve ; 
messengers of death, the lieutenant having ' 



NICARAGUA SMITH. II7 

charge of the execution of the death sentence, 
advanced to him, and asked if he had any last 
word or message he desired to leave. He said 
*' Yes," and gave it, but the character of it for- 
bids its mention here. He died as he had lived, 
with unmentionable wickedness on his lips — a 
sad spectacle of depravity, unwept and unre- 
gretted by all ! 

The fleet steamed and sailed away, disappoint- 
ed and defeated in the object of their coming. 
Banks was moving up the Red River Valley, 
with heavy land forces, supported by gun-boats, 
and Steele down through Arkansas, to a junc- 
tion with him at Shreveport. But Texas, now 
relieved by the change of situation at Galveston, 
could spare their forces and send them to the 
front against Banks and Steele. They met them 
in detail, before the junction of the two lines, 
and both were defeated, and made disastrous 
retreats. Everything so far under Magruder 
seemed to favor the fortunes of Texas arms, and 
the prestige thereof by this time had become 
immense, particularly at home. 



Il8 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 



m 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE CAPTURED LETTER. MRS. E.'s EXILE. 

?3^00N after these several triumphs of Texas 
arms, a vessel was shipwrecked on the Gulf, 
and among the debris that washed upon the 
coast, a U. S. mail bag was picked up by 
the soldiers on duty there and forwarded to 
headquarters. It contained a large amount of 
letter mail, going North from Texas. The let- 
ters were written in part by Texans, who had 
fled the country to Mexico on account of pro- 
scription for Union sentiments, and to avoid 
conscription, with other reasons. And many 
were written by those still remaining in the 
country. 

The accident furnished an opportunity for 
the military authorities to discover who might 
be traitors in their midst. The contents of the 
letters were carefully examined, and indicated 
that some of the writers entertained sentiments 



THE CAPTURED LETTER. IIQ 

more or less treasonable to the Southern cause. 
Among the writers of this class was a Mrs. E., 
living a hundred miles from the coast, on the 
Texas Central Railroad. She had emigrated 
years before from the central part of the Old 
Empire State of the North. She was a lady of 
a decidedly literary turn of mind, and this fact 
was strongly marked in the literary tone of the 
contraband letter that had, by unforeseen acci- 
dent, fallen into military hands. It read, in part, 
as quoted below : 

** Dear Mother : It is a long time since com- 
munication was broken off between us. It seems 
an age. I am tired of it, and would that the 
unnatural struggle were over. But how and 
when, God only knows ! I am living under a 
reign of terror, where dissembling is an art, 
and must be practiced, though self-bemeaning 
to an honest mind. The crushing incubus is 
upon us, and must be borne as best it can be. 
It would be comparatively easy to float with the 
current here if one's sympathies were with it. 
But dare I say it (?), mine are not. May the 
gods, in their own quick time, relieve the ter- 
rible suspense, and give victory to the * Stars 
and Stripes.' " 

Thus wrote one of the most talented ladies in 
Texas. She was a lady of medium hight and 



120 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

size, delicately organized, sensitive temperament, 
brunette complexion, and a dark full swimming 
eye — a gazelle-eyed Juno. Unlike some literary 
members of the sex, she was a very queen of 
domestic neatness, thrift and joy, as well as a 
happy companion of books. More than this, 
she was by no means a literary or domestic re- 
cluse, but her large heart sent out its tendrils 
for the dews of neighborhood life, and gave out 
the sweet waters of friendship to such as should 
themselves be friendly. The beautiful climax of 
her character was in giving joy to others. She 
was most happy when making others so. With- 
out guile herself, she never looked for it in other 
people. Yet this beauty of her character — an 
ingenuous frankness of heart and manner — some- 
times inspired envy and jealousy in those who 
were her personal and social antipodes. 

In literary matters, the poets were as familiar 
to her as household words. But she paid trib- 
ute not to literature alone, but ventured into the 
deep waters of such authors as Hugh Miller on 
Geology, Humboldt's Cosmos, and was able to 
digest metaphysics, theology, etc. And if, in 
the midst of it all, household cares included, 
exhausted in mental and physical strength, a 
little negro boy should come and say, *' Please 
ma'm, here is some cloth, and mother is sick, 



MRS. E.S ARREST. 121 

and wants you to cut me a coat; she says you 
are so good you will do it," she will take the 
cloth, and cut and baste by the hour, and then 
send the little black home so glad. 

In prose she writes heavy or light, and her 
muse sparkles with beautiful poetry. She is 
now, and has been since the war, a correspond- 
ent of first-class periodicals, weekly and month- 
ly, at home and abroad, and is a leading poetess 
of the " Lone Star State." 

One morning the door-bell rang at her house. 
Mrs. E. answered the summons in person, and 
on opening the door there stood a tall, hand- 
some gentleman, in military costume. Each 
said " good-morning," and bowed the stanger's 
bow. 

"Is Mrs. E. at home?" he inquired. 

** She is," replied that lady. 

**Ifave I the pleasure of addressing that lady 
now ?" said the officer. 

*'I am Mrs. E. Will you come in. Sir?" said 
she, in a dignified tone. 

" I thank you, Madam, I will, if you please/' 
and stepping in, he was seated on the sofa. 

" Let me take your cap. Sir," said the lady, 
reaching out her hand to relieve him of that 
gold-braided and spangled ornament. 

" No, I thank you, Madam, I am in a hurry, 



122 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

and am under orders in calling on you this 
morning so unceremoniously, without previous 
announcement by card or courier," said the 
military gent, with the feeling that he was in 
the presence of superior intelligence and worth. 
At this moment he felt that it would be a 
gracious relief if he could be spared the cha- 
grin of serving a military summons upon the 
fair lady, for whom he confessed himself inspired 
with unusual respect, though never having met 
her before. He treated her, in words and man- 
ner, with genuine politeness, and no gentleman 
could have done otherwise. 

" May I inquire. Sir, speaking of being under 
orders, what your orders are?" said Mrs. E., 
with evident surprise at the officer's hint. 

This interrogatory of the lady had the effect 
of producing a grip of Mars at his throat, while 
Cupid's arrow struck his heart, and the lady, all 
unconscious of his struggle between the two 
deities, waited his reply. At last regaining his 
speech, and having studied well the language in 
which he would make his errand known, with 
the least possible shock to Mrs. E.'s sensibili- 
ties, he proceeded to say : 

" My dear lady, it becomes my very unpleas- 
ant duty, under imperative orders, to request 
you to accompany me to headquarters, at IIous- 



MRS. E.'S ARREST. 1 23 

ton, where General M., the Commander of the 
Department of Texas, will make known to you 
the reasons of this summons." 

" A request for me to appear at military head- 
quarters, before the Department General — for 
vii\ a lady ! and may I know what for ? Strange 
Order from the General to a lady ! What can 
it mean, and will you, if at liberty, explain 
how, and why it is, that a humble lady like 
myself has so suddenly reached such a de- 
gree of importance with the military headship 
of the land ?" 

" As I said before, he will disclose to you the 
reasons for this summons, Madame," said the 
officer. ** It is a very unpleasant matter to me, 
and the more so, as I perceive you are a lady of 
unusual refinement, appearance and manners." 

** I suppose, then, the summons is imperative 
and I must go ?" said the lady again. 

" Madam, I do not clothe my orders in such 
abrupt language, but feel bound to treat you in 
every respect as a gentleman should a lady, or," 
hesitatingly, " as if I were an old and accepted 
friend, paying court to your ladyship," said the 
man under authority, not from the war deity 
alone, for the last words were on the indictment 
of the little-winged god. 

A lovely carnation blush overspread the bru- 



124 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

nette cheeks of Mrs. E., and reflected back the 
sentiment, in wordless pleasure. Just then the 
gallant gentleman relieved her momentary em- 
barrassment, by pleasantly inquiring: "How 
soon, Mrs. E., may I expect the pleasure of your 
company by railroad to Houston. The next 
train will be here in two hours. Can you be 
ready in that time?" 

She assured him that she could. *' You will 
then excuse me, Madam, from taxing your time 
further, and I will return to the depot, and there 
wait your coming at the hour." So saying, the 
oflicer retired. On reaching the depot, he saw 
the two soldiers he had brought with him, armed 
with bayonets, and supplied with handcuffs, in 
anticipation of arresting some female outlaw, 
but now would part with the world, if his to 
give, sooner than Mrs. E. should know of his 
bayonet companions, and the other prepara- 
tions for depriving her of physical freedom. 
He ordered the soldiers to keep out of sight 
at the depot, and give him no word or look of 
recognition on the train in the lady's presence. 
At first they did not exactly understand the 
secret of such instructions, but asked no expla- 
nations, though they wanted to ask, and the 
officer did not condescend to enlighten them. 



MRS. E.'S ARREST. 125 

SO they were left to their wits to divine the 
mystery. 

But, meanwhile, what had been going on at 
the house of Mrs. E. ? During the interview 
between her and the officer no member of the 
household had intruded into the room where 
they were, but as he retired she lost no time 
in acquainting the family circle with what had 
happened. That is, she told them that she had 
to report herself at military headquarters; and 
described the good-looking and polite gentle- 
man who had served the summons, but said 
never a word of the little brush of romance 
from Cupid's wings. 

" But what does it mean ?" said one and 
anotlier, and still another. 

"I don't know," said slie, "but I am going to 
see. The officer is a true gentleman, I am satis- 
fied, and no harm will befall me in his hands. 
Besides, he will not only give me a safe conduct, 
but will regard the feelings of a lady, and make 
it sub rosa. And now let me say, dear ones, 
that whatever developments may occur, you 
shall be duly informed, and I don't feel that we 
need fear serious harm." 

Then she retired to make her toilet, and a few 
minutes before train time she was on the plat- 
form in a modest but bewitching attire. The 



126 FIVE VEARS IN TEXAS. 

officer gave one glance, that was all — a stranger 
would have given two or three — and, turning 
away, felt a soft sensation in his left side. He 
tried to appear like a stranger, with no interest 
in the lady, who now stood looking up the road 
for the train. She had divined and appreciated 
the public reserve of her military escort dis- 
played at that delicate moment. 

Soon the whistle blew, and the train was in 
sight. Just then the officer passed her and 
said, ** Select a seat in the rear car, and I will 
come to you." The train moved up, bringing 
that car at her side. She entered by the front 
platform, he by the rear. They met at the 
center, and found one seat fully vacant only. 
He motioned her in, and she did not object 
to the stranger's occupying the seat with her. 
Train is off, and the noise of rumbling wheels 
soon drowns conversation to all but the mutual 
talkers themselves. What, with the hope that 
nothing serious is to befall her at headquarters — 
as her conscience tells of no crime against mili- 
tary or civil order — and the new found pleasure 
of company so congenial, she almost forgets the 
relation of officer and prisoner. The trip of 
fifty miles seems less than an hour, as the train 
enters the city of destination. 

The officer and his fair prisoner are seated in 



MRS. E.'S ARREST. 12/ 

an omnibus, and driven to — not headquarters, 
nor the common jail, nor guard-house, but to 

the House, the best in the city, and there 

Mrs. E. is imprisoned in a nicely furnished 
room for the night. The officer retires after 
ordering all her wants supplied, even to a special 
waiting-maid, saying as he goes: "Mrs. E., I 
will call in the morning with further orders. I 
hope you will rest well, and not have unpleasant 
dreams." 

That night no bayonet paced the hall by her 
room to prevent the prisoner's escape. No, her 
honor, better felt than told, stood sentinel at her 
door ! The next morning a gentle rap an- 
nounced the officer's presence, and on open- 
ing the door he gave her a pleasant smile, with 
a cordial "good-morning." She looked a little 
pale, as if she might not have rested well the 
entire night, which induced him to ask: "Are 
you quite well this morning, Mrs. E.? You are 
looking a little pale." On assuring him that she 
was, he notified her that he was now ready, if 
she were agreed, to escort her to the presence 
of his dignity. General M., at his private quar- 
ters. 

"Certainly, Sir, I am ready and anxious, as 
well as curious, to know the meaning of this 
strange proceeding. Is it far, Sir ?'' 



128 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

" No, it Is not very far, Madam, but no matter 
about the distance, as there Is a carriage at the 
door waiting to convey us thither." 

*'0, there Is; but this treatment seems too 
kind and generous toward your prisoner. I 
could have walked as well. Sir," said Mrs. E., 
while a tear came Into her eye, which, turning 
her head aside, she tried to hide from his view, 
but which he saw, and treasured In the heart of 
his recollection. 

Taking his arm they descended the stairway, 
and proceeding through the hall to the front 
door they entered a close carriage, and were 
driven away without meeting the stare of listless 
spectators. On reaching the General's quarters 
she was ushered Into his presence with military 
salutations from the subordinate to his superior 
officer. " I have the honor. General, of return- 
ing the process served, and the prisoner, Mrs. 
E,, Is before you, whom I now Introduce to 
you," said the sub-officer. She bowed genteelly 
to the General, which brought the military bluff 
to his feet, and to make his politest reply, which 
would be awkward in most gentlemen. He 
asked her to be seated, ordering a chair. Then 
reseating himself In his big swivel chair, and 
facing the lady, he proceeded to say : 

" Mrs. E., I suppose you would first like to be 



MRS. E. S ARREST. 



129 



informed as to the reasons for this summary- 
proceeding- against you; and though, as De- 
partment Commander, I am not required by 
military law or usage to allege the cause of 
action, yet, in this case, and because I am deal- 
ing with a lady, who though a stranger to me, 
I perceive to be intelligent and genteel, I will 
assign to you the reason for this peremptory 
summons. A letter, purporting on its face, to 
have been written by yourself, or some one 
bearing your name, by the accidents of war and 
providential direction, has /alien into my hands, 
and a portion of its contents proves to be ti-eas- 
onable to the Confederacy." Here handing her 
the letter, he inquired : 

**Mrs. E., do you recognize the letter as 
yours?" 

" I do," was the brief response. 

"And those are your sentiments, as therein 
expressed, toward our cause, Madam?" again 
said the General. 

** The letter reads so, General, and it would be 
cowardly in me to deny, now under fear, what I 
then said without fear. I was frank then, and 
will not be less so now. Those were, and are, 
my sentiments; though little did I think, or 
intend harm, by the letter, to the Confederacy 
when writing it, and in forwarding it to friends 
9 



130 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

in the North ; as it was strictly a private letter 
to private friends, disconnected with any motive 
to inflict injury upon the country. Nor can I 
see or feel that the offense is a penal one in any 
sense, so long as I am found guilty of neither 
constructive nor actual treason, by aiding or 
abetting the enemy, furnishing him material aid 
or contraband information, nor of the possession 
of treasonable motives, expressed or implied, 
waiting the opportune moment to display them- 
selves, or something more than mere feelings 
or convictions, which are certainly involuntary 
things, and hence without responsibility. Feel- 
ings and convictions, permit me to suggest, 
General, are like birds flying over one's head, 
for which one is not responsible. One is only 
responsible for willful action, in obedience to 
these feelings and convictions. I will not urge. 
General, the further consideration, that your 
prisoner is a woman, without pretension, whose 
sphere of action is confined exclusively to the 
domestic circle, including some little experience 
in literary matters. But of all this you must 
and will be the judge, of course, and I must 
submit to your judgment and consequent orders 
in the premises, but I would respectfully beg to 
be spared from sustaining damages, either cor- 
poral or incorporal, on the plain principle of 



131 

justice, that where one has neither done nor 
intended damage to others, he should not be 
damaged himself." 

The General replied, though not without some 
misgiving : " My dear Madam, you defend 
yourself capitally well, and I perceive you are 
not only an intelligent lady, and hence, on this 
score, we fear you in our cause all the more, if 
disposed on seeming occasion, to do damage, 
which is liable to come at any time by the acci- 
dents of war, but I feel bound to say that I 
believe that you are a well-meaning lady, though 
not patriotic toward the country of your adop- 
tion. But, Madam, occupying the responsible 
position I do, I am bound to discard personal 
feeling, and take notice of facts, both actual and 
possible, and not be a respecter of persons, but 
have my country's weal and prosperity before 
me, and remove with scrupulous care all obsta- 
cles thereto, even the least. 

** As you say your case is not criminal in any 
important sense, but imprudent, inexpedient, 
unfortunate, the least I can do is to remove 
you beyond our lines till after the war. And as 
most convenient to us, and probably preferable 
to you, I will order you, by military escort, to 
Matamoras, in Mexico, across the Rio Grande. 
And I detail Lieutenant H. here, the officer who 



132 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

placed you under arrest, and brought you to 
these headquarters, to command the escort, and 
see the order of exile carried out. You can 
now return home on your parole of honor, and 
there await further orders." 

To a lady of her style and sensibilities such 
a proceeding would be shocking, but Mrs. E. 
bore up under it well. She retired from the 
General's presence, with the pointed remark, 
addressed to him : ** Well, General, if I under- 
stand the situation then, you exile me, not so 
much for what I Jiave done, as for what I might 
do?" 

"Your case is disposed of. Madam. I have 
nothing further to say; and you are too much of 
a lady to bandy words with," replied the Gen- 
eral. 

She was driven to the cars as she had come, 
in company with Lieutenant H., who saw her 
safe on board, and as the train moved off, he 
pressed her hand, and said warmly, " Good-by. 
God bless you ; be of good cheer; in a few days, 
two or three, you will see me again, and — " he 
left the sentence unfinished, as the train was get- 
ting fast, and leaped from the platform. 

At the hour of 12 M. she was at home again. 
** In a few days, two or three," she said to the 
family, " I am off for the sunset side of the Rio 



MRS. E.S ARREST. 1 33 

Grande to Matamoros. This is the order of 
the General, and to remain there, or outside the 
lines, till the ' cruel war is over.' 

"And now. Lew, I want you and your sister 
Emma to accompany me with the ambulance 
and the nice white carriage mules, and be my 
companions in exile. Do, my dears, and don't 
say no, for how can I go alone, and leave my 
adopted darling brother and sister. We can do 
something for a livelihood if the purse gets low, 
and we'll fill it as we go." 

"But, dear Mrs. E., you have not told us 
yet why you are Ordered into exile. Have you 
been committing some enormous crime that 
deserves the punishment of expatriation ? Tell 
us, for it may be that we may meet the fate of 
poor * Dog Tray,' being found in bad company, 
which might not be quite so pleasant after all." 

Thus responded, archly, Lewis and Emma. 

"Sure enough. Pardon me, dears, my mind 
had become so absorbed with results that I had 
become oblivious of the cause. Ah ! why so, not 
demented am I ! and yet with all my effort at 
self-control, there is, I feel, a terrible strain on 
my nerves. Bat the cause, what do you sup- 
pose it is ? I will tell you. Do you remember 
that letter I wrote to my dear old mother two 
months ago, dying, no doubt, with the heart- 



134 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

ache for her child in this far-off country, and in 
these troublous times ? You do. Well, by a 
strange ordering of the fates that letter fell into 
the hands of the military. I see you wonder 
how. It was on this wise : The vessel carry- 
ing the mail was shipwrecked on the Gulf, and 
among the things carried ashore by the tide- 
waters, near Sabine Pass, was the mail-bag con- 
taining the fatal letter, and was picked up by 
the soldiers on duty there, and forwarded to 
headquarters. And now that is how the situa- 
tion is, and the procuring cause of my being in 
military limbo." 

"And is that all — is that the head and front 
of your offending?" exclaimed the brother and 
sister, and then added, "If that be all, we are 
not only ready to go with you into exile, but if 
need be to the ends of the earth. Yes, we'll 
go, dear Mrs. E.; we'll go, and glad of an oppor- 
tunity for voluntary exile from a country so 
mean, and with one so dear." 

" Hush, my dears; give utterance only to such 
feelings when we are safe beyond the lines. 
Now we understand each other, let us to the 
work of preparation for the journey of four hun- 
dred miles. Lew will look after the mules and 
ambulance. The ambulance will need two good 
seats, and room inside, and a rack behind for 



MRS, e/s arrest. 135 

provisions and trunks. And you and I, Emma, 
will see the trunks well filled with clothing for 
all around, and other things that may come in 
play. You know we shall be obliged to camp 
out the whole way through, as there are no ' 
places of entertainment in that wild country. 
The wolves will nightly give us howling sere- 
nades around our camp-fires. But the escort 
will affbcd us ample protection against four-leg- 
ged wolves, and wolves bipedal." 

The next two days were busy ones of prepa- 
ration, interspersed with brief respites, occasions 
for interesting chats and consultations on the 
novel trip before them, in which the ever-recur- 
ring how, when, where, and wherefore, were 
thoroughly canvassed and disposed of each time 
as well as mortals with only mortal ken could 
dispose of such things yet in the untried future. 
At last, when the clock said ten, the second 
night, the trunk lids were pressed down to their 
places, locked and strapped, and Mrs. E. wea- 
ried, and half-falling into a big arm-chair, ex- 
claimed, "There, Lieutenant H., you may come 
as quick as you please, we are ready." 

Just then the door-bell rang. " Why, who's 
that," said Mrs. E., in a half-startled, but sup- ^ 
pressed tone; but a little bird told her it was 
the Lieutenant Miss Emma approached and 



136 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

opened the door, and sure enough it was he. 

**Is Mrs. E. in?" inquired he. 

** She is," replied Emma; "please step in. Sir." 

** Good evening, Mrs. E.," was his salutation 
to that lady. She replied, and rising and meeting 
him they shook hands warmly. 

He remarked, apologetically, ** It is a late 
hour to call, but I know you will excuse me. 
Madam. I am stopping at the hotel in town, and 
just came to know if you were ready to begin 
the pleasant journey in the morning,'' at the 
same time glancing at Lew and Emma, to see 
if tliey appeared to comprehend the situation. 

" We are ready, I thank you. Lieutenant, and 
only wait 'further orders,' having just this mo- 
ment, before you came, strapped our trunks." 

The Lieutenant looked surprised at the plu- 
ral, " we are ready ,'^ and gave another glance at 
the brother and sister, and then at the two big 
trunks, and had parted his lips to speak, when 
Mrs. E. interrupted him with, "Yes, we are 
ready — these, my darling friends, my children 
almost, are going with me to be my companions 
in exile ; and we are going in our own convey- 
ance, and have just one vacant seat for you. Lieu- 
tenant, and we all cordially invite you to occupy 
it, and travel with us. And whatever military 
cavalcade is to accompany us, let them travel 



MRS. E.'S EXILE. 137 

by themselves and be our John Baptist. What 
say you, Sir, to this?" 

" Well now, really, Mrs. E., this is quite un- 
expected, and as I can have no objection, cer- 
tainly, to the surprise plan, for which you alone 
are responsible, I can not refuse your kind invi- 
tation to make one of the number of so pleasant 
a traveling quartette. So being ready, I re- 
spectfully suggest the hour of eight in the 
morning as the time for starting. My requisi- 
tion on the Commander of the post here, for six 
men and two four-mule teams and ambulances 
with drivers, has been filled, but it can remain 
so, and I will order them out an hour ahead of 
us, and we four will leave together, in a quiet 
way, not exciting public curiosity. And now, 
good-night all, I will be here at eight, sharp." 

''What do you think of him. Miss Emma, 
and how will we be likely to fare in his charge ?" 
said Mrs. E. after he had gone. 

"What do I think of him? you ask. To 
speak, frankly, I think he is a nice gentleman, 
and will do to travel with, either with or with- 
out a military escort. I feel assured in his 
presence." 

" It is indeed a painful thought to be driven, 
forced from one's home and country, even as a 
penalty for real crime, but when .for an accident, 



138 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

a misfortune, which points to no criminal intent, 
it is a grief, unassuaged by aught save a con- 
scious innocence. Though in my case, so far, 
a halo of real romance seems to gather around 
to shed its sweet sadness o'er my heart, to lighten 
the burden that presses it. Indeed it feels like 
the tender hand of the All-wise Father, caressing 
my troubled spirit into quiet and confident re- 
pose. Indeed, I almost feel thankful for the rod; 
and to bless the hand that holds and applies it. 
In a word, to speak directly, the trip we are about 
to make seems in its circumstances more like 
a pleasure trip than going into exile. But let 
us to repose; it is eleven o'clock, and we must 
rise early." 

They retired, and the travelers of to-morrow 
are soon lost in sweet slumbers, which are made 
a little sweeter by pleasant dreams, in which the 
name of *' Lieutenant H." escapes the lips of 
both the fair sleepers in low murmuring tones. 
Each hears the gentle murmur from the other, 
but is unknowing of her own; and each buries 
the secret in her heart, resolved that what has 
passed the portals of the ear shall not command 
the tongue for revelation on the house-top, nor 
to private ears, not even their own, unless, per- 
chance, the mischievous little deity that presides 
over the heart destinies of most people, shall, 



MRS. E. S EXILE. 1 39 

for the sake of diversion, so far awaken curiosity 
as to force out the secret. 

The morning light breaks in the east, and 
throws increasing strength upon the darkness 
of slumbering night. Awake, yes, wide awake. 
They arise, and perform in thoughtful silence, 
and with unusual care, their morning toilet. 
The morning repast is hurried through. The 
ambulance is at the door, and Lew, at seven 
o'clock, is loading and strapping on the trunks, 
with other necessary traveling equippage. The 
morning is beautiful, and the glorious sun has 
nearly reached the score of eight in the heavens, 
when Lieutenant H. suddenly appears, with smi- 
ling politeness, as bright as the sunny morning, 
and exclaims, "All ready, I see, and so am I; 
shall we be off?" 

The family adieus are said. Lewis is on the 
front seat, with lines in hand. The Lieutenant 
hands the ladies in, Emma beside her brother. 
Just then Mrs. E. remarks, " I suppose. Lieu- 
tenant, you will occupy the seat beside your 
prisoner, to prevent her escape into the deep, 
tangled wild wood, when passing through the 
dark * bottoms ' of the Brazos ? We shall soon 
be there." 

" Thank you. Madam, that would seem en- 
tirely proper, and perhaps necessary; at least 



140 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

the situation is not repulsive." So saying, he 
became seated with a satisfied air, and Emma 
gave a stolen glance back over her shoulder at 
the double situation, first of officer and prisoner, 
and then of friends. She denied to herself 
thinking she would be willing to exchange seats 
with Mrs. E., as she caught sight of the Lieu- 
tenant's handsome face smiling under the star- 
light of his brilliant eyes. She felt a little un- 
easiness on her own seat, and imagined it was 
not as easy as the back seat would be ; still she 
comforted herself into a tolerable degree of con- 
tentment, though it was far from being a con- 
tinual feast. She thought, and admitted to her- 
self, that the arrangement of seats was entirely 
natural, and to introduce any change would be 
rude. So she would endure what had no cure, 
and bide her time. These reflections came and 
went in her mind, but if some invisible hand 
had written them do\\«i over her signature, she 
would have denied the authorship of them. 

An hour or more had passed, and Lew had 
been giving strict attention to his handsome 
viiilos, and on the level road had allowed them 
willing speed, and now they descend quite a hill, 
and enter the four-mile 'bottoms ' of the Brazos. 
The way was a narrow forest arcade. The giants 
Aocked arms one and two hundred feet above their 



MRS. E.'S EXILE. 14^ 

heads, festooned with vines, mingled with the 
deep hanging moss, which fringed the trees here 
ind there, and everywhere vailing from view the 
foce of the sky, and holding back the sun's rays, 
which penetrate not that dark passage, for full 
eight months of the year. Strange sounds here 
fall upon the ear, reminding one that half the 
zoological collections of Noah's ark could be 
found here, both of bird and beast. A half 
shuddering fear came over the ladies in that par- 
tial night, and each one leans a little nearer her 
companion. They have penetrated the dark way 
half a mile or more, when suddenly the mules 
stop, affrighted, and begin to back. Emma 
screams, and half swoons on her brother's arm. 
" What's the matter ?" exclaim the others. Lew 
is some excited, but keeps cool from necessity. 
It was indeed a startling sight. An immense 
panther had just leaped across the archway, 
from tree to tree, forty to fifty feet above, and a 
few rods ahead, as though preparing for a leap 
upon the unwary travelers. At the moment of 
alarm, the Lieutenant had clutched his trusty 
rifle by his side, and the next instant all four 
saw the cause of alarm. The brave officer was 
instantly on the ground, with rifle in hand, and 
already drawing a bead on the gentleman in the 
trees. " Take care of the team and ladies, Lew, 



142 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS.' 

and I will soon make him sick," said he, but the 
animal was leaping from tree to tree, making off 
into the deeper forest, and was out of sight at 
two or three bounds, screaming as he went. 
But the Lieutenant gave him a parting salute, 
on a shadowy glimpse of him, at the sixth 
bound. The animal gave an unearthly scream, 
that sent a million echo thrills through the dark 
woods, and then a heavy ground fall. "I've 
brought him," exclaimed the officer. Reload- 
ing his gun, though he had one load yet in 
the other barrel, he ventured carefully into the 
thicket against the earnest remonstrance of the 
ladies, and found the game in the last muscular 
struggles of death, as he expected, having luck- 
ily struck him in the heart. Drawing his tape 
on him, he measured nine feet from tip to tip. 
Leaving his dead carcass to be food for buz- 
zards, and returning to the ambulance, they 
moved on again through the dark tunnel, while 
the Lieutenant held his finger on the trigger, 
keeping an eye out for further intruders. 

They had driven a mile farther, when the 
mules again pricked up their long ears, and this 
time a small pack of wolves crossed the road 
twenty rods in front, in a hurry, as if pursued 
or pursuing. They stopped not, nor so much 



MRS. E.'S EXILE. I43 

as looked at the travelers, and were lost to view 
in an instant or so. 

The Lieutenant here mischievously inquired, 
" Mrs. E., is it here you would like to escape 
from me * into the deep tangled wildwood ?' " 
That lady only answered with a shudder. Mis-^ 
fortunes, on dit, never come single ; so with 
frights. They had now reached the muddy 
malarious Brazos, and ferried across by virtue 
of a military pass, and had gone a full mile 
beyond. The pressure of fear had begun to 
yield as they saw open daylight through the 
tunnel, a quarter mile in the distance, but now 
again the imdos suddenly halt in a fright, and this 
time with snorting fear, snuffing danger near! 

" Look there ahead in the track ! See that 
awful snake coiled there !" exclaimed Emma. 
Again the Lieutenant was on the ground, gun 
in hand; and again the fair ones object. But he 
was not deterred from the purpose of bruising 
the serpent's head. Providing himself with a 
dead limb that had fallen from the trees above, 
he went bravely to the attack ; first firing a bul- 
let at his snakeship's head as it stood raised in 
arched defiance over the complex coils, ready 
for the springing bite of death ! The bullet 
carried away the crest of the head, which threw 
the reptile into fearful contortions, and then, 



144 ^'J^VE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

with terrific blows from the Hmb of the tree, 
he soon brought it to a quiet quivering rattle! 
It was a fearfully large spotted wood rattle- 
snake, and by the tape measured eight feet 
three inches in length, and had seventeen rat- 
tles. Relieving the highway of its presence, 
and casting it into the brush by the wayside, 
they passed on, querrying, "What next in the 
line of sensation?" and thinking, that for the 
first half day, and the first ten miles, the events 
of the morning would suffice all fancy for that 
class of romance. 

Again the cruel Lieutenant asks something 
about escaping **into the deep tangled wild- 
wood." But Mrs. E. extorts a promise from 
him of silence on that subject in the future; at 
least till they get out of the woods. 

No more disturbing events occurred that day, 
but the feast of heart and soul was rich and 
racy. They were out of the fearful " bottoms " 
and rising to the clear and balmy atmosphere 
of the beautiful, upland prairies. How different 
from the humid, pestiferous breath of the low, 
dark regions of an hour ago ! They breathed 
free again. It was high noon, and they saw, 
two or three miles ahead, a beautiful grove, 
where they agreed to go into midday camp. 
On nearing it at one o'clock, their advance guard 



MRS. E. S EXILE. I45 

of two ambulances and the " six in gray," were 
coming out. The hailing sign to halt was given 
by the Lieutenant, and driving up, a few words 
were exchanged, and orders given about the 
route and where to camp that night, and then 
the advance drove on, leaving the officer and 
his company in the leafy grove by the cooling 
spring, enjoying their noon refreshments. No 
fire was struck, no coffee made, but a basket of 
native claret was opened, a bottle broke, and the 
nectar of the gods was sipped from silver gob- 
lets by the joyous four. 

Two hours had flown by in happy mood, in 
which the stomach proved the principal organ of 
friendship. The hungry epicures in the woods 
felt the divine flow more free and warm in obey- 
ing this ordinance of the gods. Their willing 
hearts would have staid in such a frame, and 
whiled away the sunny hours in that grove of 
bliss, but the voice of duty called from refresh- 
ment to the labor of the way. The midos were 
satisfied, hitched up, and on the move to the 
wes^ , accomplishing twenty miles more by night- 
fall, where they find the advance again, in beau- 
tiful camps, with two bright camp-fires a few 
rods apart — one for themselves and one for the 
exile with her attendants. The provisions are 
brought out for supper, and on this occasion 
10 



146 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

Lieutenant H. proves himself an adept at coffee 
making. 

The ladies offer to take charge of the cook- 
ing department, but he objects, claiming that he 
can make the best coffee. " Ladies, * let him that 
would be great among you, be your servant.' 
I am the character referred to in the quotation, 
and I insist that you shall not be my competi- 
tors for distinction in the coffee-making line.'' 

When the evening repast was over, the Lieu- 
tenant takes the ladies, one on each arm, and 
kindly gives them a bit of walking exercise by 
moonlight, through the grove, thus relieving 
the tedium of riding all day. The balm, stilly 
breezes creep through the open spaces with vo- 
luptuous effect, inspiring the arm-in-arm trio 
with soft sentiment, and their happier thoughts 
are mostly on themselves. "Stop," says Emma. 
"What dreadful noise is that?" as the distant 
screeching howl of the Coyotas fell on the ear. 
"It is the Coyotas," replied Lieutenant H. 

" Let us return to camp at once," said both 
the ladies, and back they went quicker than 
they came. 

It is ten o'clock at night, the guards are on 
duty, and all retire, the ladies behind the ambu- 
lance curtains, and the officer and Lew on a 
blanket before the camp-fire. The wolves come 



147 

in and howl an hour or two within a few rods 
of the fires, in search of camp offals. The eye- 
lids of the fair ones refuse sleep. At last a 
charge is made on the lank, hungry creatures, 
and a volley fired into their ranks by the guards, 
and they are routed and return not for the night, 
and then Somnus commands all in quiet rest for 
the next six hours. At seven in the morning 
breakfast is over, and the advance leads out 
again, followed an hour later by the traveling 
partie carree. 

The next six days of travel furnish no. great 
variety of scenery or excitement, except in the 
social department, which seemed never to cloy. 
Otherwise, the trip, for the most part, was but a 
daily experience of repeated routine. All eyes 
and ears became familiar with sights and sounds 
by night and by day. Immense droves of cattle 
and horses were seen grazing right and left over 
the wide-spread prairies, and occasionally lank 
hunger was seen sitting at the mouth of his hole, 
in some sand bank or mound, or at the roots of 
some lone veteran tree, looking wistfully at the 
travelers, seeming to say to them, ** How I 
would like to feast on your starved carcasses !" 
A bullet from the Lieutenant's rifle keeled one 
back into his hole, and scared another, tearing 
a rabbit for his breakfast so bad that he made 



148 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

lightning speed northward, and never slacked 
'or the mile he was in sight, and at the brow of 
the hill, where his narrative became invisible, its 
last motion seemed to speak back and say, " I 
never heard a rifle before." And probably it 
was the fact — and on he went, as if resolved on 
never stopping till he got to the north pole, for 
fear he might hear another. 

On the seventh day the weary travelers stood 
on the banks of the far famed " Rio Grande," at 
Brownsville, opposite the city of Matamoras, in 
the State of Tamaulipas, Mexico. The Lieuten- 
ant here ordered the advance into camp to wait 
his return. And then he crossed the " Rio " 
with the exiles, and remained with them till they 
were located in a pleasant suite of three rooms 
fronting on the " Grand Plaza," near the mag- 
nificent Cathedral. He made the excuse to him- 
self that it was necessary for him to act as spe- 
cial protector to the ladies, till they were suf- 
ficiently familiarized with the ways of that strange 
people, to be able to make their own way, till 
he could see them again, and perhaps in nearer 
and dearer relations. 

Lieutenant H. had now had ample time to 
analyze and determine the character of his feel- 
ings, which he more than once had displayed in 
manner toward Mrs. E., but had not spoken with 



MRS. e/S exile. 149 

his lips. In his self-examination he found his 
heart vibrating between two attractions — Mrs. 
E. and Emma. The question of preference, as 
tried by a purely chronological standard, stood 
against Mrs. E. She was considerably his 
senior in years, that was plain, but how much, 
and how many years, he could only guess. He 
could not tell if she were older or younger than 
she appeared, but probably older; that is, she 
was young appearing for one of her years ; or, 
vice versa, she was old appearing for one of her 
years ; that is, younger than she appeared ; or, 
making a third alternative, she was just the age 
she appeared to be. " But how old would that 
be?" he asked himself And here again he was 
puzzled. Sometimes, during their travels, he 
thought she looked younger, and then again 
older, than when he first saw her, and served the 
summons. At one time he thought he saw the 
signs of wrinkling age, and then again he didn't 
see them. "But," he said again, "one thing is 
certain, the general proposition is true, that she 
is either older or younger than she looks, or 
just as old as she looks. So far I am safe; and 
furthermore, it is safe to affirm that, judging 
from 7nere appearances, she is about forty years 
old. She may be older, or she may be younger. 
Yes, she may be, but I think I am not far out 



150 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

of the way. She certainly is, without any pos- 
sible mistake, somewhere between thirty-eight 
and fifty. If I were sure she were only forty, I 
could stand that. Let me see: I am thirty-five 
Suppose she were but forty ; how would that do ? 
A wife five years older than her husband! It 
would sound better the other way. I don't like 
it very well, but, with love, I think I could en- 
dure the disparity. Endure (?), is that the word 
for a man seeking a companion ? 

" There is Miss Emma ; how old is she ? From 
twenty to twenty-five. That certainly sounds 
better. But do I love her well enough to make 
a wife of her? Well, I think I could, or do(?), 
if Mrs. E. was out of the question ; I feel her 
drawing me the hardest, and the orthodox peo- 
ple say there can be but one true love, and I 
suppose it must be so, either because they say 
so, or because it is true in fact, in nature, that is, 
one's experience will accord with the sentiment. 
But is it true in my experience ? I am afraid 
not; therefore I am a miserable sinner. It is 
true, I am more or less involved in feelings to- 
ward Miss Emma, warmer than common friend- 
ship between a single lady and gentleman, and 
it is 7;iore than less. Now what is a man to do 
with an experience so in violation of the ortho- 



MRS. E. S EXILE, . I5I 

dox- teaching and steady habits of the olden 
times of our ancestors ? 

"But hold; here I am talking quite foolishly, 
for how do I know that either of those ladies 
would accept? I have not proposed, and they 
certainly won't What shall I do ? I can not 
propose to bpth, for 1 am not a Mormon, and 
don't want to be. Still I like them both, that's 
true, but the laws of the land are against bigamy. 
I wonder if nature is.^ Certainly human self- 
ishness is not But hold again, there is no end 
to love's mystery. The only way is to be brave. 
*A faint heart never won a fair lady.' The 
more I think, the more am I confused, in a 
quandary. O thou winged god, tell me what to 
do! I am resolved what to do. I will first ask 
one and then the other. But which one first ? 
And will this be honorable to the last ? Stop, 
ye gods ! confusion confused ! What am I 
about ? Crazy ! ho, for the insane asylum ! 
But I must find relief I am desperate !" 

Evening shades appear, and Lieutenant H. 
is seated alone with Mrs. E., and after a few pal- 
pitations choked down, his sitting posture and 
position of hands made satisfactory, and his 
words well studied, his lips part to speak the 
word of destiny, when Mrs. E. suddenly breaks 
the awful silence with the domestic utterance, 



152 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

"How I would like to see my little daughter 
Kate and my husband to-night." 

Horrors seize upon him. He makes no reply. 
"What is the matter, Lieutenant, you look so 
pale?" inquired Mrs. E. He grows paler, and 
she goes for the camphor, and hurrying back 
places the bottle to his olfactories, repeating, 
" What is the matter, Lieutenant ?" Recovering 
a little, he stammers out, " Nothing, Mrs. E.; 
nothing, only I felt a little faint, as I do some- 
times. Let me pass out into the open air, and 
I shall soon be myself again." When he stood 
outside in the free air, and looked up into the 
heavens, made beautiful by moonlight — the un- 
rivaled silvery moonlight of Mexico — he thanked 
his stars, most of all, for putting it into the heart 
of Mrs. E. to speak at the instant she did, and 
save him from unutterable chagrin 1 In a few 
minutes he returned to the room where he had 
left the lady, and was once more seated in 
her matronly presence. She was changed, and 
looked older now, and more unapproachable in 
his eyes. Surprised at his quick convalesence, 
lie was now prepared to enter upon conversa- 
tion with Mrs. E. concerning Miss Emma. He 
felt settled now that his angel was calling his 
heart toward her. So after a few easy interro- 



MRS. E.'S EXILE. 153 

gatories, addressed to Mrs. E., he was satisfied 
that she was neither married nor engaged. 

Miss Emma had been out walking with her 
brother Lew, and had just returned and entered 
the room. For a few moments all took part in 
a running conversation, but being about time to 
retire, Mrs. E. and Lew withdrew from the room, 
thereby breaking up the congregation, and leav- 
ing the Lieutenant and Miss Emma, each to 
enjoy company. "Two are company, and three 
are a congregation," says Emerson. 

We will say in brief, he proposed and she ac- 
cepted, but on condition that she might remain 
with Mrs. E. during the exile. 

" Certainly, Miss Emma, you shall remain. I 
would not have you leave her, and am glad to 
see this evidence of your friendship and faithful 
devotion. And now. Miss Emma, as I have never 
been an advocate of long courtships, but depre- 
cate them after the parties engaged are sufficient- 
ly acquainted, I would respectfully suggest, that 
without ceremonious preparation or invitations, 
which we could not have here, among strangers, 
and in a strange land — and without waiting till 
we can have them — we have the nuptials sol- 
emnized to-morrow evening, in this room, at 
eight o'clock, in the presence of Mrs. E. and 
your brother. I will remain with you a few 



154 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

days, and then return with my squad, and re- 
port to headquarters, and by some honorable 
means get back to you here at an early day." 

At this interesting stage of proceedings, the 
retired portion of the congregation was called 
from their slumbers to hear and sanction the 
matrimonial terms, which, being duly done, the 
ladies disappeared for the night, and Lieutenant 
H. went to repose with Lew, who in twenty-four 
hours more would be his new brother. 

They were married, and in ten days duty 
called the bridegroom to interior Texas, where 
he was held four months before he could coms. 
back to his bride. Three months more, and the 
war had closed with victory for the *' Stars and 
Stripes." Mrs. E. and her friends were relieved 
from exile, and all returned home to the bless- 
ings of peace and joys of domestic life. Lieu- 
tenant H. had proved a heaven-sent blessing to 
them all. 



LAWLESSNESS AND CRIME. I55 



CHAPTER XV. 

LAWLESSNESS AND CRIME. 

the summer of 1863, we were coming 
up the Texas Central Raih'oad, from Hous- 
^ ton to Hempstead, a distance of fifty miles. 
On reaching the latter place we had stepped 
from the cars to the depot platform, and in a 
minute heard a pistol-shot on the opposite side 
of the train. Thought nothing strange of it till 
in a moment more some one remarked: "A 
man is shot." And even then thought nothing 
unusual of it. The feeling of terror was only a 
uniform matter of course. But stepping across 
the way we observed a crowd gathering at an 
unoccupied store building, went in and there 
saw a man on the counter, stretched at full 
len«?k on his back, struggling in his blood, and 
breathing heavily, with a bullet-hole through his 
head and brains protruding. Near by him stood 

his murderer, Dr. O r, with nonchalance and 

a smile of fiendish satisfaction. 

The dying man had been overseer on his 



i$6 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

murderer's plantation. A difference had arisen 

between Mrs. O r and the overseer about 

the management of the plantation. And the 
lady, true to Southern instinct, could not brook 
opposition from an overseer, so she writes her- 
self " insulted " to the doctor in the army, and 
home he comes in a rage by the train we were 
on, and spying the unsuspecting offender through 
the car-window, leaps out and shoots him down 
at sight and without warning. No one looked 
strange or excited, or said a word. We walked 
back to the train in disgust, feeling it may be 
our turn next. Went home to B m, twenty- 
five miles, and the next morning a friend of ours 
— a druggist. Dr. F g, from Paducah, Ken- 
tucky, at the opening of the war — was assassi- 
nated in the public streets. The writer officia- 
ted at his funeral from his widowed mother's 
house, who was thus robbed of her only son 
and support in old age. The sheriff of Wash- 
ington County witnessed the transaction, and 
had foreknowledge of it, but did nothing offi- 
cially to prevent or punish the crime. The 

name of the assassin was B 1, who, the writer 

learns, has since come to a similar end himself 
in the State of Mississippi, thus illustrating the 
innate reflex, as it were, of the law of retributive 
justice that sleeps not nor slumbers till it has 



LAWLESSNESS AND CRIME. 15/ 

blood for blood, life for life! The murdered 
man's mother and only sister are since deceased, 
hurried out of the world by the great sorrow of 
his untimely and tragic end ! 

One night after the family had retired several 
pistol-shots were fired back of our house, at- 
tended with boisterous talking. Dressing, we 
went to the back window, and there saw a man 
in the moonlight falling to the ground. Just 
then a voice at the front of the house called : 
" Mr. N., Mr. N., come down here, I want to see 
you quick !" Descending the outside stairway 
leading from the upper to the lower gallery, we 
met our friend Captain C, who instantly ex- 
claimed : " Mr. N., I have shot my best friend 
all to pieces. Please go and look after him. I 
must leave. You will find me at Dr. B.'s or 
about there." We went to the dying man, and 
found several collected around him. He had 
two shots through the knee and thigh, the latter 
cutting the big artery, and he bled to death in a 
few minutes. 

It was Mr. Smythe, whom we had met not 
three hours before in the evening, and who then 
took occasion to protest his innocence from hav- 
ing taken part, as we had been informed, in a 
little persecution against the writer about the 
purchase of a lot of cotton. We noticed he 



I5*B FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. ' 

seemed somewhat excited, judging from Ills tone 
of voice in the dark, and he on horseback in the 
street. While conversing he remarked in a low 
defiant tone: "You know, Mr. N., that I am not 
afraid of any man!" Just then we heard the 
click of a pistol in his hands, and instantly felt 
ourself in danger, and saying to him "it is all 
right," suddenly retreated to the house and did 
not go out again till called out to look after his 
corpse. 

It seems after we left him he fell in company 
with a drunken desperado, and about eleven 
o'clock the latter came to the gate of our back- 
yard, on Smythe's horse, and called by name 
for one of the colored servants to come out to 
him, and getting no response tore pickets from 
the fence and hurled them against the door of 
the negro quarters. Soon Smythe appeared 
and an altercation took place between them 
about the horse. Our friend. Captain C, was 
passing to his home, and out of kindness to the 
family sought to quell the disturbance. As he 
reached the spot the desperado was drawing his 
revolver on Smythe, and when disarmed by the 
Captain, then Smythe in turn drew a derringer 
on the desperado, when the Captain caught it in 
his left hand, holding the revolver in his right, 
and saying : " You shall not shoot a disarmed 



LAWLESSNESS AND CRIME. 159 

man." Smythe responded : '' Let go my pistol 
or I'll shoot j/(?/^," accompanying the threat with 
an oath. A struggle ensued in which Smythe 
recovered the use of his pistol, and shot the 
Captain, grazing his hip. He replied with two 
shots, which finished Smythe's career on earth. « 
A preliminary examination was had, and the 
Captain was bound over, but the grand jury dis- 
missed the case as justifiable hom.icide. 

We will now relate an incident, with which 
the writer was still more personally connected, 
to illustrate the bitter prejudices a Northern man 
had to meet living in that country. Yes, prej- 
udice ! a thing conceived in sin, born in iniquity, 
twin of jealousy, and equally cruel ; one of the 
relics of barbarism still clinging to poor human 
nature, tormenting its waking hours and its 
dreams by night, lurking in the soul's deep re- 
cesses, and in the thoughts of the brain, display- 
ing in its action all the bristling, snarling, growl- 
ing, barking, and snapping suspicion of the ca- 
nine race, ready to pitch on every strange dog 
passing the street. It may be further character- 
ized as the blindest, most unreasonable, hateful 
and hating, and most desperately wicked pas- 
sion of the human soul. It casts its blighting 
mildew over everything it touches. 

We can have no extensive acquaintance with 



l60 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS.' 

its presence and power in society until we have 
met and felt its chafing and friction-grinding 
power in the strange relations and contacts of a 
selfish and suspicious world. Our ideas and 
feelings are not sufficiently humanized and cath- 
olic in their sway. And when we think they 
are, frequently on occasion we are waked up to 
discover they are not. The thought is unwel- 
come, that in this we exhibit still, in despite our 
genteel and generous progress, the unconscious 
affinities of barbarism. 

But why do we thus comment ? Because in 
our five years' Texas experience we met this 
monster of the human heart in shapes and 
phases, deeper, darker, and more vile than we had 
ever dreamed of before, or could have dreamed 
if we had never seen Texas. There this barbar- 
ous element assumes a more lawless and crim- 
inal form than in any other country we ever 
saw. There it hesitates not at doing personal 
violence to its object. And so much the more 
as they value human life less than other people. 
Comparatively, Northern people can scarcely 
imagine what prejudice means except in milder 
forms, and as defined in dictionaries, pulpit the- 
ories, and so forth. 

A lady friend said to us on our return from 
that country; *' Mr. N., you ought to be a wiser 



LAWLESSNESS AND CRIME. l6l 

man for what you have seen in Texas.'* A gen- 
tleman was kind enough to say to us : " Served 
you right, you had no business to go there in 
the first place." Now we do not of course ask 
the alms of sympathy in our Texas experience, 
particularly from such as might feel harmed by 
the exercise of that n.oble grace, but simply ap- 
pear as the writer of a little personal history. 

Perhaps no Northern man was more unfortu- 
nately situated in Texas than the writer. He 
had gone there just a few months prior to the 
war, which, to the eye of prejudice, was evi- 
dence, prima facie, that he was a spy, or some- 
thing else inimical to the country's welfare. If 
not, why was he there at that late day ? The 
incident we wish to relate is in the following. 

11 



1 62 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE TWO days' MEETING. 

;OMETIME in June, 1864, the writer had an 
'm\ appointment for a two-days' meeting, four- 
teen miles away, at a place called U 

H , Saturday and Sunday. On the 

morning of the sixth day of the week, the splen- 
did clay-bank saddle-horse was brought out, 
young and vigorous, and the preacher placing 
himself in the Spanish saddle, was on his way 
to the religious meeting, reaching there two 
hours before the time. Preached at eleven 
o'clock A. M. to a large week-day audience in 
a neat house of worship situated in a beautiful 
grove on a hill which was the highest land-point 
in the county. He was the invited guest of a 
local preacher, at whose instance the appoint- 
ment had originally been made. 

In the afternoon, a self-resolved committee of 
three gentlemen called on the preacher to know 
if the report were true, which was current there, 
they said, that, on the 1 2th of April previous, he 



THE TWO days' MEETING. 163 

had held a feast at his house, to which all the 
Yankees in the neighborhood were invited 
guests, and that, too, in express opposition to 
the proclamation of President Davis, making 
that a day of fasting and prayer, calling upon 
the people to resort to their places of public 
worship, and pray for the success of the Confed- 
eracy. If not true they desired to suggest that 
the preacher had better notice the report in the 
public meeting that night. His local preacher 
friend opposed giving any such undue prom- 
inence to the report. But he disposed of the 
committee by remarking : " I will follow my 
best impressions at the time." 

The evening came on, the audience assem- 
bled, and after preliminaries he arose to an- 
nounce text and subject, but before doing so 
said to the hearers : '* I understand you have a 
grievous report about me here, the scene of 

which is laid in B m. I heard the report 

myself some time ago there, but it bore such 
evidence of instigation by the cloven tongue 
of prejudice and slander that I thought little of 
it, and it had passed from my mind." The 
preacher then gave a brief recital as they had it. 

"But," said he, "the report in B m had one 

item that you have not here. That at the close 
of the feast I was at the head of the table and 



1 64 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

drank off a toast to the name of Abraham Lin- 
coln. " Furthermore/' said he, " I will now 
give you another fact not contained in either 
report. It is this : The Confederate Brigadier- 
general M., with three members of his staff, were 
present at my table that day. One of his staff 
ofacers is a Baptist clergyman, and was the only 
minister present at the public services that day, 
and officiated in his clerical capacity, coming from 
church to my house. This important fact was 
evidently left out of the report, because if in- 
cluded it would have damaged the plausibility 
of it and defeated the purpose of the intended 
slander, which was to injure your humble serv- 
ant, and no one else." 

The preacher continued : " We had two meals 
that day at our house — breakfast at the usual 
hour of eight o''clock in the morning, and our 
bill of fare contained no extras on account of 
the day; nor do I remember that the bill was 
reduced or modified either in quality or quan- 
tity to suit any preconceived wc/tions as to what 
would and would not be proper to eat or ab- 
stain from eating on that proclamation-day of 
fasting and prayer. We had dinner at four 
o'clock in the afternoon, and having fasted four 
hours beyond the usual hour for that meal, we 
thought it not a serious breach of the letter or 



THE TWO days' MEETING. l6$ 

spirit of the proclamation-text to crowd a little 
more into the dinner hour at four P. M. My 
wife is a splendid cook herself, and what with 
that fact, and her supervision of three or four 
colored assistants, and the inspiration all were 
under to do their best because of the coming 
presence of the aforesaid military dignitaries, we 
did have about as good, and delicious, and so- 
ciable a meal as the times and the state of the 
market would permit. I will not so far dignify 
the report as to deny the evil animus of it, but 
call the attention of the audience to two facts, 
and leave you to draw your own conclusion : the 
toast and the presence at our table of a Confed- 
erate Brigadier-general, with his staff, reconcile 
them who can." 

Here leaving the matter, he announced his 
text: "But the Scripture hath concluded all 
under sin." And as he was in the mood of a 
holy indignation at that hour, he evolved from 
hts text the topic of "sin: wherein it consists," 
and "its bitter fi^uits : wherein do they consist." 
And he gave them, to the best of his ability, a 
sermon that savored of brimstone and the hot 
place below ! 

Sunday morning the preacher gave them 
"faith, hope, and charity," and felt victory his, 



l66 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

as seen in the increasing numbers and interest 
of the meetings. 

General M. was his personal and accepted 
friend, and a Union man at heart, and accepted 
the garb of a brigadier-general of State militia 
to hold his political popularity in the State, for 
he had aspirations toward the gubernatorial 
chair, and hoped some day to do his State bet- 
ter service in a civil capacity. 



THE CONSCRIPT LAW. 16/ 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE CONSCRIPT LAW AND HOW THE WRITER 
BEAT IT. 

^^HREE years and more of war had now 
passed, and we had succeeded in flanking all 
movements to get us into the army. The 
conscript law had been in force a year or 
two, sweeping all ages from eighteen to forty- 
five, and all classes except ministers of religion 
in regular discharge of ministerial duties, State 
and county officers, and slaveholders owning a 
certain number of slaves, fifteen being the mini- 
mum. Of course, it being the slaveholder's 
war, and the slaveholder never having been 
obliged to work for his rights in human chat- 
tels and things, but others made to produce and 
maintain them for him, his aristocratic leisure 
must be consulted and favored still, in the con- 
duct of the war. It was tJu slaveholder' s war^ 
but the poor ma7i's fight. And nothing pleased 
them better than to force a Northern man, de- 
scribed in their parlance — a d — d Yankee, and 



1 68 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS.] 

a d — d abolitionist" — into the army, and get 
him killed off. 

The writer has been asked a hundred and one 
times: *'How did you escape the army?" The 
question is easily answered. After the first vol- 
unteering wild-fire had swept over the land and 
died out, he saw what would be the next step in 
the war programme, conscription. " The wise 
man seeth the evil and fleeth," says the prince 
of wise men. And though he did not flee in the 
literal sense, yet he did in the legal sense of 
the coming conscript law, by changing his 
"base** from that of a simple private citizen to 
that of a minister of religion ; and had his regular 
congregation, to whom he ministered over two 
years. By this der7iier resort, he bridged over 
a bad place in the road — for " Jordan was a 
hard road to travel " — and he was on the hardest 
part of the road in those days. 

But as late as February, 1865, a new ex- 
emption law was reported to the Confederate 
Congress, and on the eve of being passed, 
containing this clause: "All ministers of re- 
ligion, who have, at any time during the war, 
bought and sold for profit, shall go into the 
army." This law was reported to Congress by 
Mr. Miles, of South Carolina, Chairman of the 
Military Committee. But we were credibly in- 



THE CONSCRIPT LAW. 1 69 

formed the Hon. Williamson S. Oldham, repre- 
sentative from our Congressional District, drafted 
it, and inserted the clause relating to ministers 
of religion, with particular reference to the wri- 
ter's case. The Hon. gentleman had spent two 
hours or more in our store, the day before leav- 
ing the last time for Richmond, Virginia, to 
dance attendance upon the last and forlorn ses- 
sion of the Confederate Congress. And having 
posted himself in our case, he concluded that 
business clergymen were the forlorn hope of the 
Confederacy. The animus of the law was that 
ministerial drones only, who would not work, 
but preferred starvation, or living off their bro- 
ken-down congregations, were entitled to ex- 
emption from military duty. But the more en- 
terprising class of ministers, who were willing 
to divide financial burdens with their congrega- 
tions, by seeking business pursuits, for support- 
ing themselves and families, and yet giving them 
the same amount of pulpit service, with the 
drones, were damaged by the virtue of business 
enterprise, and held to the performance of mili- 
tary duty. 

This looked like the impassable gulf which 
we could neither cross nor flank. But Solo- 
mon's forlorn hope of ''fleeing" was left us, and 
we made a hasty and masterly retreat out of 



I/O FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

Texas into Mexico. The retreat, however, like 
all hasty retreats, was expensive and financially 
disastrous. We had no time to strike tent, 
gather up family and material interests, and 
take with us. It was the occasion of finally 
losing thousands of dollars. But when safe on 
the sunset side of the Rio Grande, in Matamo- 
ras, the Confederate asthma left us, and we 
breathed freer. But not long after, we found 
that though we had escaped the Confederate 
"frying pan," we had jumped into the Mexican 
"fire," for the demon of war was after us there. 
The city was under the personal command of 
General Mejia, the favorite General of the Em- 
peror Maximilian, and who, the reader will re- 
member, perished with his imperial master at 
the tragic close of the quasi Empire. And at 
the time we speak of, the city was beleagured 
by Generals Canales and Cortinas, of the Liberal 
party, on the outside. The report was put in 
circulation that the foreign residents must help 
defend the city. This was the most dangerous 
ground yet, for in case of the capture of the city, 
the foreigners in arms, just at sunrise some fine 
Sunday morning, would have been filed out on 
" Boro Plaza," and shot to death without *' bene- 
fit of clergy." The public shooting of one or 
more on this plaza was generally the opening 



THE CONSCRIPT LAW. I /I 

entertainment of each Sunday. From shooting 
all went to High Mass, then to carrying the 
host through the streets ; thence to the cock- 
fights, beer-garden dances, theaters and other 
amusements the balance of the day. 

The writer found that long familiarity with 
such scenes resulted in a demoralization of 
noble sentiment and refined feelings ; so that at 
last one came to regard human life not much 
above the level of brutes, and to feel that there 
is no virtue except in name, and that the dis- 
tinction of right and wrong is only relative and 
conventional, having no absolute and universal 
foundation in truth and equity. Indeed the 
Romish Church of Mexico — and no other is 
there — seemed to act and move on this broad as- 
sumption, as she does everywhere, when permit- 
ted to act out her nature freely, that truth and 
right are not absolute things as they relate to 
mankind, but are to be held subject to her dictum 
and disposal. Hence the same thing may be 
right or wrong at the same time, depending only 
on the circumstance of being allowed or disallow- 
ed by the Church. Here comes in the plausible, 
yet mischievous doctrine and dispensation of in- 
dulgences. There is but a step betwixt truth and 
error, betwixt the sublime and the ridiculous. 

The Rev. Dr. L n, from Nashville, Ten- 



1^2 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

nessee, a Cumberland Presbyterian divine, and 
the writer, joined in a petition to his Imperial 
Majesty, Maximilian, for a free permit to hold 
religious services as Protestants in the city 
of Matamoras. The petition was granted, and 
soon after it was followed by a proclamation 
from the Emperor, decreeing religious freedom 
to all throughout the Empire, including foreign- 
ers. This was doubtless a species of rcligio coup 
d\'tat, intended for effect ; but more abroad than 
at home, particularly in the United States. How- 
ever we took advantage of it for a {^\w weeks in 
the city; and held services in the "Varieties* 
Theater," each Sunday morning, for the benefit 
of the Anglo-American population. But after 
the fourth Sunday we began to feel the bitter- 
ness of the native population toward us. And 
this, in connection with the danger that the city 
might fall into the hands of the Liberals, who 
were less liberal in religion than the Imperials, 
caused us to discontinue the religious services. 
And though so soon defeated, yet we felt a little 
wholesome pride in the fact that we were the 
first Protestant heretics that ever bearded the 
Romish Lion in his Mexican den. The city re- 
mained in Imperial hands till we left. 



PLOT AGAINST THE WRITER'S LIFE. 1^3 



^ 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

A PLOT AGAINST THE WRITER'S LIFE — MORE 
ABOUT TEXAS. 

N July, 1864, being in trade at B m, and 

having been for two years doing a commis- 
sion, receiving, and forwarding business, be- 
sides buying and selling on his own account, 
the writer called one day at the Collector's office, 
in the court-house, to pay the quarter's two and 
a half per cent, taxes on sales. The Collector 
being absent, he inquired of a squad of men at 
one of the front doors of the court-house — 
among whom was his Honor District Judge 

S d — if they had seen the Collector. Just 

then a man came hurriedly pressing through 
the squad, and approaching us asked if our 

name was N . We had no sooner said yes, 

than he struck us over the mouth, cutting both 
lips nearly through on the teeth, accompanying 
the blow with the denunciatory charge : " You 
d — d scoundrel and thief, you have stolen ^23 
from my wife." 

In quick succession six or eight more blows 



1/4 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

followed the first, when, bringing into requisi- 
tion the little knowledge of the " gloves " ob- 
tained in boyhood, we succeeded in warding 
them off. His poor success as a pugilist drove 
him to the use of an office chair, whose blows 
were received with another. Then he changed 
to hurling the chair at us with all vengeance, 
which we received as before, until both chairs 
were demolished. By this time we were in the 
court-house yard, when our personal friend, 
Deputy-sheriff Hardin, came to the rescue, 

caught Mr. T d, our assailant, under his 

powerful right arm, and held him as in a vise. 
By this time our assailant's brother appeared on 
the field, and ordered the Sheriff to release his 
brother, saying : ** It is all right to whip the 
d — d Yankee." " No, Sir," replied the officer, 
"if you want to hurt Mr. N. you must hurt me." 
He released him on a promise to keep the peace. 
Meanwhile, we saw a dozen men circled around 
us, armed with revolvers. We could see the 
devil in each eye We then began to suspect a 
plot. But what could the charge mean ? The 
explanation had come to us. We remembered 
the clerk had said some lady had brought to 
the store a lot of dress goods, and requested 
their sale for her account at certain prices. 
That he had sold them for the gross amount of 



PLOT AGAINST THE WRITER'S LIFE. 1/5 

^230, taking out the usual ten per cent, com- 
mission of ;^23, and paid her the balance. We 
made a statement of the facts to the circle of 
desperadoes, and then retired to our house. 

The next day, from a couple of friends, lead- 
ing men in times of peace, but nowhere in such 
times, we learned what the plot was. The low 
class hated our presence in their midst, and 
business success, and in their bitterness would 
drive us from the country or kill us. The ;^23 
matter was to be used as a pretext for the at- 
tack, hoping thereby to provoke retaliation as a 
further excuse for shooting us down, and in case 
of failure his confederates were to reinforce him. 

They seemed to calculate pretty safely that a 
dozen of them, at least, could dispatch 07ie un- 
armed Yankee. A calculation very different 
from that which they boasted at the opening of 
the war, that *'one Southern man could whip 
just one dozen Yankees." Yes, our assailant 
swore vehemently that "he preferred fighting 
Yankees at home rather than in the field." We 
replied, " very likely, if unarmed." 

The friends advised us to leave the place, as 
they feared secret assassination. We took their 
advice, and left for San Antonio, one hundred and 
sixty-five miles west, where we took our family 
in a few weeks, and spent the winter of 1864-5. 



iy6 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

On the first day of March, 1865, the writer took 
an ambulance stage — a sort of private irregular 
affair — for Matamoras, having for company, be- 
side the driver, a lady and two children, going 
to her husband there, and placed under our 
care. The driver had never been through on 
the route before. We got along quite well the 
first three or four days, having a change of 
mules each day. But one afternoon we took 
the wrong road, and brought up ten o'clock at 
night, lost in the middle of, so to speak, a shore- 
less prairie. The mules exhausted, the driver 
turned them out to graze for the night, with 
forty feet of stake rope betwen each pair. 

The lady and her children were settled for the 
night in the stage, and the driver and ourself 
took the accustomed ground bed. At break of 
day the writer awoke, and raised his head to 
look for the grazing mti/os, but could not see 
nor hear them. Suspecting they might have 
taken leave of absence, the driver was instantly 
awakened, and he followed the rope trail in the 
road we had come the night before, a half a mile 
back, and then it suddenly changed to the right 
oblique, and was lost in the trackless prairie 
grass. The sun was two hours high, and it was 
Sunday morning. It felt like Sunday all round. 
No sign of civilized life in view on that ocean 



PLOT AGAINST THE WRITERS LIFE. I// 

prairie. Here and there could be seen, forty 
arid eighty rods off, the hungry Spanish wolf 
seated in quiet watchfulness, and patiently long- 
ing for a human meal. Our provision box was 
nearly empty ; the children \¥ere crying for wa- 
ter, and we had none, and could not tell when 
we would have any. Nine o'clock came, and no 
driver nor mules yet. He had gone northward, 
and the writer struck out toward the rising sun 
in search of the missing animals. We had gone 
about a mile, and saw a mile or two further in 
the distance two men on horseback, driving a 
large herd of cattle and horses. We followed 
them as rapidly as our pedestrian qualities v.^ould 
permit, and when on an elevation, within possi- 
ble hailing distance, say half a mile, we raised 
an Indian whoop, and imagined ourselves con- 
siderable of an Indian in the whooping line just 
then, as there was a strange feeling of life and 
death about it. We succeeded in making them 
hear, got their attention, and by waving a white 
signal, succeeded in drawing them to us. They 
were Mexicanos, not able to understand a word 
of English. Fortunately we could make them 
understand the situation, in their own language, 
the Spanish. We gave them two Spanish dol- 
lars to go and hunt the mules. They were gone 
an hour and returned, handing back our money, 
12 



178 'five years in TEXAS. 

saying the umbra had the mules. We took but 
one dollar, giving them the other for their hon- 
esty. *' Adios, Senor," and off they rode. Just 
then we saw the driver coming with the mules, 
two miles off. At first they looked like one im- 
mense animal about forty feet high, mounted by 
a man twenty feet more. This illusive effect was. 
produced by the prairie mirage. About noon 
the mules were in harness again and moving. 

At four in the afternoon we reached water at 
a Mexican Ranche. The children were nearly 
famished from thirst, as they had been twenty- 
four hours without water. And here we struck 
the lost road again, twenty-eight miles from Rio 
Grande City, on the Rio Grande, called Ring- 
gold Barracks during the Mexican war with the 
United States, named for Major Ringgold, who 
was killed there. 

We passed down the river on the Texas side 
with a fresh team, crossing it by ferry, at Edin- 
burg, and then we took the stage on the Mexi- 
can side, one hundred and fifty miles to Mata- 
moras. We made that distance on the finest 
road we ever saw, in just twelve hours. The 
next stage that came through was captured, and 
^robbed by the cut-throat Cortinas, who is digni- 
fied in the military world with the title of Gene- 
ral. The splendid stage line was thereby com- 



PLOT AGAINST THE WRITER*S LIFE. 1/9 

pelled to haul off, to the great annoyance and 
detriment of the traveling public. 

We will here record a tragic incident to illus- 
trate the savage character of this half-breed semi- 
barbarian Cortinas. But it is quite enough to 
mantle with patriotic shame the American cheek, 
to know that a high Federal officer was particeps 
criminis in the foul play. 

Don Manuel G. Rejon was a Spanish gentle- 
man, of fine personal appearance, in whose veins 
ran the pure Castilian tide, an eminent lawyer, 
and a member of the Mexican Congress. In 
April, 1864, owing to the political disturbances 
which occurred in the States of Nueva Leon 
and Coahuila, he fled to Brownsville, Texas, and 
thought himself secure under the protection of 
the United States flag. 

Jose M. Iglesias, one of President Juarez's 
Ministers, was at this time in Matamoras, and 
solicited the extradition of Rejon. General F. 
J. H., commanding the Federal forces on the 
lower Rio Grande, turned him over to the Mexi- 
can authorities. 

The surrender of a political refugee like Re- 
jon, that he might be put to death by his 
enemies, never occurred before in the United 
States. The famous, or rather infamous, Corti- 
nas was then Governor of the State of Tamauli- 



l80 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

pas, and in obedience to the arrogant orders of 
Minister Iglesias, caused him to be shot. A 
father's prayers, a woe-stricken wife's tears, and 
the piteous wailings of his children, did not 
avail to save the unfortunate Rejon. 

General H., after having surrendered Rejon, 
applied for the extradition of a certain Con- 
federate agent, who resided at Monterey; but 
his wishes were not gratified by the Mexican 
authorities. We believe the name of the agent 
was J. A. Quintero. 

The surrender of the fated Rejon was a gross 
outrage upon the principles of civilized warfare, 
and was done with the moral foreknowledge 
of the bloody fate that awaited him. The act 
was as if surrendered to the tender mercies of 
Indians! And though General H. might have 
been actuated by a desire to secure the surren- 
der of the Confederate agent Quintero, yet this 
furnishes no palliation for the unprecedented 
action. The act remains a blistering stigma upon 
the General, as it should; and is an unvarnished 
disgrace to the United States service — inexcusa- 
ble, inhuman, and savagely mean; showing that 
even a Federal General, in one instance at least, 
could hob-a-nob in cut~throatism with the infa- 
mous Cortinas. In our view, it was a high- 
handed stroke of arrogance, unauthorized by 



PLOT AGAINST THE WRITER'S LIFE. l8l 

military precedent or necessity, and should have 
resulted in cashiering General H., and dismiss- 
ing him from the service in disgrace. 

In a few weeks the writer's family came to 
him in Matamoras; five hundred miles they 
came alone, with a lady traveling companion, 
through a wilderness country, camping out four- 
teen nights, the Spanish Coyotas making night 
hideous with their Scottish bagpipe combination 
of screeching, howling sounds. The country 
covered much of the way with Mesquite and 
Cactus "Chaparral." Very little water, except 
in puddles by the wayside. Our youngest child, 
eio-hteen months old, sickened from the water, 
and nearly died at Matamoras. The overdone 
condition of Mrs. N., from personal exposure, 
mental anxiety and fear, she has never fully re- 
covered from. We are vain enough to think 
that few women could have shown equal hero- 
ism under similar experience, and lived through 
it Doubtless the experienee of previous years 
in the Methodist Itinerancy had prepared her 
for such emergencies. We know not, indeed, 
what we can endure until put to the test. 

Only two weeks before making this journey, 
the family had been flooded out in San Antonio 
by the sudden rise in the San Antonio River, 
eighteen feet in two hours. They barely es- 



l82 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

caped with their lives, losing nearly everything 
in the line of household goods — carpets, five 
feather beds, mattresses, a lot of elegant parlor 
books, and among them an elegant gold-clasp 
family Bible, containing the family record, worth 
thirty dollars and otherwise valuable as a gift 
of former years. The flood was caused by a 
sudden discharge of an immense water-spout 
from the heavens, a few miles above the city in 
the San Antonio Valley. The water-spout had 
come from the Gulf, a hundred and fifty miles or 
more, and discharged itself in the valley, throw- 
ing the river over its banks. The writer was in 
Mexico at the time. ^ 



LEE*S SURRENDER. 1 83 



CHAPTER XIX. 

lee's surrender.— effect upon TEXAS SOL- 
DIERS. writer's RETURN TO TEXAS. 

E were in Matamoras when Lee's surren- 
der took place in Virginia. As soon as 
the news reached Texas the Confederate 
soldiers began to desert in squads — the 
desperado class— organize into predatory bands, 
roam at will over the country, and rob every- 
body and everything they could lay hands on. 
Took special delight in robbing Northern mer- 
chants in the country. They broke into the wri- 
ter's store at B m one night, and carried off 

three to four thousand dollars' worth of goods ; 
and that was the end of it. There was no chance 
for legal redress, for the condition of the country 
was that of lawless disorder. It was not cer- 
tainly known who the robbing parties were, but 
if it had been, it would have been considered 
guilty knowledge by them, and probably cost 
one his life. 

On the 15th day of June, 1865, we took pas- 



1 84 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

sage with our family, on a Government transport, 
and came to New Orleans. Thence on July 
1st we secured passage by the **Star Line " of 
steamers, for the family, to New York, and in a 
few days returned ourself to Texas, to gather 
up, as far as possible, the fragments of business. 
Landed at Galveston just behind Hamilton, Mili- 
tary Governor of the State. Followed him up 

country, and on reaching B m, found Major 

Curtis, from Southern Illinois, in command of 
the post, with two companies of troops. 

After an absence of a year, we were back 
again on the ground of former trials and dangers. 
But now, with an assurance against fear, the first 
tiling we saw was a squad of men sunning them- 
selves on the front gallery of our old dwelling. 

house. Among them was the man T d, who 

had made the attack on our life the year before. 
We walked up and saluted tliem, saying, " How 
are \'OU, gentlemen ? I see a new order of things 
here since I left; how do you like it?" Did you 
ever see the downcast look of a sheep thief? 
Then you can imagine how some of these scala- 
wags appeared. Some never looked up again 
after the first glance. Our assailant paled, and 
looked as if his heart were quoting the inter- 
rogatory of the ancient devils : " Hast thou 
come to torment me before my time ?** 



FUNERAL SERVICE. 1 85 

With one or two gentlemen we passed to the 
Court House, where Major Curtis had head- 
quarters. Took a birdseye view of the situa- 
tion, and then went to the house of our North 
Carolina friend, a Union man, and who believed 
in Sam Houston. He could not well be other- 
wise, for he had been so fortunate as to secure a 
genuine New England lady for a wife. 

Sunday morning we were passing the soldiers* 
quarters, and saw them handing a coffin into a 
wagon. We halted, and addressing the, gentle- 
man giving directions, found it was Major Cur- 
tis. He told us the deceased was a fine young 
man from Southern Illinois, whose praise was 
upon the lips of all his soldier comrades. The 
indications were, that they were burying with- 
out religious rites, and on inquiry we learned 
they had no chaplain, and were not inclined to 
ask the services of a resident clergyman. We 
informed the Major that we sometimes acted in 
such a capacity, and any service we could ren- 
der should be cheerfully given. On his ap- 
pointment we preached a funeral discourse in 
the Court House, at 3 P. M., that day. They 
buried the Christian soldier boy a thousand 
miles away from home, where all were strange 
and few were kind. 

The next day the Major desired an interview 



1 86 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

with US at his office, to obtain information about 
certain parties living thereabouts. Here was an 
opportunity to relate our grievances, and have 
them redressed if we desired. We related the 
case to him and he proposed to arrest and pun- 
ish the party ; but we said no, that we were will- 
ing to leave the scoundrel to the handlings of a 
just Providence ! 

Bidding the Major ''farewell," and a "God 
bless you " one day, we took stage for Austin, 
the capital of the State, and headquarters of the 
Governor. Passed up the valley of the Colorado 
River, which we had frequently to ford and ferry- 
in a distance of eighty miles, before reaching 
the capital. 

The Governor was already bivouacked in the 
State domicile, and two regiments were encamped 
hard by the city. Judging from appearances, 
his Excellency meant business. Here we met, 
and became the guest of Rev. Josiah Whipple, 
elder brother of the Rev. H. Whipple, now of 
Chicago. He had once been in the Methodist 
connection in Illinois as long ago as 1840, and 
before that date. Went to Texas in a mission- 
ary capacity, in company with the Rev. John 
Clark, who died of cholera while in pastoral 
charge of Clark Street M. E. Church, of Chi- 
cago, some years ago. 



BLUE COAT IN THE PULPIT. 1 8/ 

He insisted we must not take the stage for 
San Antonio that day — Saturday — but remain 
with him over Sunday, and perform pulpit serv- 
ice for him. We did so. But on entering the 
pulpit Sunday morning, we were unfortunate in 
a portion of our wardrobe, in having on a blue 
flannel sack coat instead of a " Confederate gray " 
or black, or home-made jeans, or some other 
color than blue. Blue was as enraging to the 
secesh eyes of some of the fair ones in the audi- 
ence as red is to the eyes of a turkey gobbler. 
They could not endure the blue coat as they had 
seen the *' boys in blue " that morning, on their 
way to church, and judged we were one of the 
regimental chaplains of the Union troops en- 
camped near the city. So six or eight of them, 
led by an elderly amazon, filed out of church 
while the " blue coat" was on his knees in silent 
devotion in the pulpit 

On rising and being seated in the desk, we 
observed a little excitement at the door, between 
a couple of gentlemen and several ladies, which 
we afterward learned was the effort of the men 
to get the ladies cooled off and back into church 
again, which they succeeded in doing, except 
the old woman. She declared she would never 
hear a blue coat preach as long as she lived, and 
home she went. A few days thereafter we were 



1 88 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

told that the old lady and a daughter or two were 
sweeping the sidewalk down town with their 
long dress trails, and when coming to the United 
States flag, suspended in front of headquarters, 
and over the sidewalk, they stepped to the mid- 
dle of the street, and thus avoided the humilia- 
tion of passing under the hated " Stars and 
Stripes." 

Their contemptuous conduct was noticed, and 
reported to the post-commandant, who sent a 
posse after them, had them brought back, and 
made them march to and fro under the flag for 
several minutes, while the band played the na- 
tional airs of" Star Spangled Banner " and " Yan- 
kee Doodle." And then they were dismissed 
with the wholesome admonition, "to show more 
respect in the future for the old flag which had 
done them good, and not evil, all their days." 

A Sunday or two after we noticed the old 
lady in church again, where she listened re- 
spectfully to the preaching of the offensive blue 
coat, and we thought the thorough Union medi- 
cal treatment she had received had done her 
good, as her bilious or rebellious condition 
seemed very much reduced, and the patient 
rapidly convalescing toward a love of the " red, 
white and blueT 

We visited San Antonio, and on reaching New 



ROBBERY. 189 

Braunfels, thirty miles from there, a fine German 
town of five or six thousand inhabitants, we 
found at the hotel a man just in from the bush, 
where he had been met, robbed, stripped, and 
tied to a tree, and there left to perish by hunger 
and thirst, or to be the prey of bears, wolves, 
and panthers from the mountains near by. Judg- 
ing from the cast-off clothing they left behind, 
the robbers appeared to be deserters from the 
Federal camps at San Antonio. Fortunately 
some passer-by heard his cries of distress, and 
went and released the man from his perilous 
situation. The robbers had taken from him a 
gold watch, $17 S i^ gold, and a good suit of 
clothes in exchange for some rags of blue, with 
which the victim in part covered himself so as 
to get into town. In their haste the robbers 
left in the clothing an old silver watch, which, 
with the clothing, we took and turned over to 
the General in command at San Antonio. He 
kindly thanked us for the interest we had taken 
in the matter, and said that information had been 
lodged that two cavalry-men were missing from 
camp, and presumed these were the parties; 
and said he should send out a detachment, and 
if possible capture them. We subsequently 
learned they were not captured. You might as 
well look for a needle in a haymow as to hunt 



190 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

for deserters in the forests, chaparral, and moun- 
tains of Texas. 

We returned to Austin the sick guest of the 
Rev. Mr. Whipple, three weeks in the fellow- 
ship of the sufferings of the ancient Job. 



GOV. HAMILTON. IQI 



CHAPTER XX. 

I 

GOV. HAMILTON — THE THIRTY NEROS — THE OLD 
GERMAN AND HIS WIFE THE FIGHT WITH, IN- 
DIANS — A NATIVE Texan's opinion of Germans. 



EFORE we left Austin Governor Hamilton 
i sent out a strong detachment to the adjoin- 
' ing county on the north, and had arrested 
sixteen members of the vigilance committee, 
whose whole number was thirty, and whose 
business had been during the war to hunt up 
and kill Union men. The sixteen were brought 
to Austin and lodged in prison to await trial. 
Eight of them turned States' evidence, and tes- 
tified that the thirty had killed, in their own 
county, exactly their own number. They showed 
the officers where fourteen of the victims were 
buried, in one place. 

We were invited to dine one day with a friend 
at the house of their legal counsel. From him we 
gathered the facts. He said that he considered 
their defense desperate to the la§t degree; but 
he was bound by his professional oath and honor 
to see that they had a just and impartial trial. 



192 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

One of the victims of the fiendish malice of 
these thirty Neros was an old, white-haired 
German, eighty years of age, who was suspected 
of Union proclivities. They went to the house 
where the old German and his aged wife were 
living together alone, in peace and quiet, and 
made the pretext to the old lady that they want- 
ed her husband as an important witness in some 
case, which partly quieted her fears. They placed 
the old man in the saddle, and ordered him to 
ride in front. As he was passing out the gate 
of the front yard, the villains shot the old man 
in the back, and he fell to the earth dead ! The 
old lady standing in her door-way saw it all, 
gave one long, wild scream, and fell forward to 
the ground! The wretches left, nor let the 
grass grow under their feet till safe in their 
hiding places. 

The thunderbolt of insanity had passed through 
the soul of the wretched old wife, and when we 
left Austin she was a hopeless maniac in the In- 
sane asylum. We wish to say that these things 
were generally unknown outside the localities 
where they transpired during the war. 

To the northwest of Austin, a hundred miles 
away, we heard the report that a serious fight 
had occurred between the State Militia and two 
or three hundred Indians, who had come down 



FIGHT WITH INDIANS. I93 

from the mountains to steal horses and cattle. 
That the Indians fought in ambush, and made 
many of the whites bite the dust. But when the 
lying spirit of the war was over, the truth came 
out that these Indians were a colony of German 
refugees fleeing from Texas persecution to Mex- 
ico. But few of them ever reached there. 

The German population of Texas were gen- 
erally understood to have Union sympathies, 
and were therefore cordially hated by original 
T'exans. We were riding one day into the 
country with a genuine Texan, and coming to a 
heavy German settlement, he called our atten- 
tion to their fine farms and substantial improve- 
ments, and said, " See the Germans squatted 
everywhere on the best lands in our State. Ill 
till you what I would do if in my power. I 
v?ould compel them to leave the rich land and 
go to the sand hills and sand prairies. I don't 
think they have any business on these lands, 
and right under the noses of the better class of 
citizens." 

This was an occasion when we regarded the 
*' discretion " of thinking without speaking "the 
better part of valor." But we confess that we 
never felt more disgraced by the company we 
were in. We passed out to his plantation. His 
house was scarcely fit for a horse-stable, and 
13 



194 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

everything was in filth and confusion in and cut 
of doors. We thought the meanest German in 
the settlement his king in industry, neatness and 
thrift. One of the most flourishing towns in 
Texas is New Braunfels. It is thoroughly Ger- 
man in its original settlement and growth. As 
already stated, it is located thirty miles east of 
San Antonio, and probably on the shortest river 
in the world, the Comal, two miles long. Just 
to the north of the town, and running west, is a 
range of mountains. At the base of this moun- 
tain range, the Comal rises from the bosom of 
the earth, from several large springs, which flow 
together within a distance of a few rods, has no 
tributary, descends fifty to seventy-five feet within 
the two miles, and then falls over a bluff, making 
the best water power in the State, and equal to 
any in the world for the quantity of water. Then 
loses itself in a confluence with the Guadalupe 
River, which still further north rises in the same 
sudden way. And on this stream are several 
fine water powers. The waters of the two rivers 
will equal in volume the Rock River of Illinois. 
The San Antonio head-waters are formed from 
several sudden springs three miles above the 
city. The San Marcos, still east of all of those 
before named, originates in the same way, and 
all of them furnish an abundance of water pov/er 



DRY ATMOSPHERE. 195 

all along their courses. And when it comes to 
the character of their waters, the writer must 
confess that he has never seen their equal in any- 
country. They are as limpid as the finest spring 
water ever seen. We have thrown a five cent 
silver piece into one of the San Antonio springs, 
and seen it on the pebbly bottom, fifteen feet 
down easily, and the depth did not seem to the 
eye more than five or six feet. 

The country, where these streams rise, is from 
six to eight hundred feet above the level of the 
5;ea, and only a hundred and twenty-five to one 
hundred and fifty miles from the ocean. The 
result is a clear, dry, salubrious atmosphere. So 
much so that if standing on a mountain top, 
twelve miles west af San Antonio, in a clear day, 
one's vision can penetrate westward two hundred 
and fifty miles across the Rio Grande to the 
mountains of Monterey, in Mexico. 



196 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

NORTHERN TEXAS. 

\N this closing chapter of our book, we have 
thought that a brief outhne sketch of the 



yM- topography, cHmate, soil, and productions 
of Texas might not be uninteresting to the 
reader. And in order to this, we shall speak 
first of its grand geographical divisions, as char- 
acterized and distinguished by peculiar products. 
And first we will speak of Northern Texas, 
which is distinguished for being the wheat re- 
gion of the State. The wheat region proper 
embraces about thirty counties, of which Dallas 
County may be regarded as the center, contain- 
ing about thirty thousand square miles. The 
rich black soil is especially adapted to wheat- 
growing. It yields in ordinary seasons, and 
under the imperfect cultivation that it gets as 
yet, twenty-one bushels to the acre as a mean 
average; and in occasional instances the quality 
is so superior as to weigh seventy-two pounds 



NORTHERN TEXAS. 



197 



to the bushel. After the first year of the late 
civil war the supply of flour was principally 
from Northern Texas. Its quality was su- 
perior to any flour we have ever seen in Illi- 
nois. The soil is equally favorable to all the 
other cereals that are produced in the Northern 
States. The soil on and near the Upper Brazos 
is reddish, and is now considered the best for 
wheat on account of the solution of gypsum 
that it holds, and which is regarded as an im- 
portant quality in a wheat-producing soil. It 
wears better and longer than other soils. 

The southeastern and southern-central coun- 
ties are the best cotton-growing region, the 
rmost fertile of all lands in the State, and for any 
thing, like an equal area, the best for cotton that 
can be found in the world. The cotton coun- 
ties proper constitute about one-quarter of the 
State. The region also includes several millions - 
of acres of sugar lands, often quite equal to 
those of Louisiana. Sugar has been produced 
in considerable quantities near the mouths of 
the Brazos and Colorado Rivers. 

The topographical face of the country, in the 
cotton and sugar section, is quite uniform on 
the coast belt of it. Galveston and Lavaca are, 
respectively, ten and twenty-four feet above the 
level of the sea; Houston, which is fifty miles 



198 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

from the former port, is sixty feet; Columbus, 
which is eighty-five miles from the coast, is two 
hundred and fifty feet; Gonzales, something 
over one hundred miles, is two hundred and 
seventy feet. This shows a very moderate rise, 
of only a foot or two per mile, from the coast 
far inland. 

San Antonio, one hundred and forty miles 
from the sea, and outside of the cotton region 
west, is six hundred and thirty-five feet above 
sea-level. The table lands and the desert, called 
Llano Estacado (Staked Plain), in Northwestern 
Texas, are two thousand and two thousand five 
hundred feet, and some elevations are five thou- 
sand feet above the sea. 

In point of climate Texas claims to be called 
the Italy of America. The mean temperature 
corresponds, and is equally clear and glowing. 
Its peculiarities over other climates of latitude 
are found in its unwavering summer sea breeze 
and winter northers. The first is a delightful 
alleviation of its summer heats, flowing each day 
from the Gulf as the sun's rays become oppres- 
sive, and extending remotely inland to the fur- 
thest settlements with the same trustworthy 
steadiness. It continues through the evening, 
and has so great effect that, however hot the 
day may have been, the nights are always cool 



NORTHERN TEXAS. 1 99 

enough to demand a blanket, and yield invigor- 
ating rest. 

The severe northers occur from December to 
April. They come with varying durations — 
from a few hours to two or three days, and sel- 
dom extend beyond the general period of forty 
days. The rapid reduction of temperature from 
seventy-five to thirty-five degrees, and the driv- 
ing wind, are keenly felt. When accompanied 
with heavy rains and sleet, as is sometimes the 
case, not often, the cattle suffer and die off in 
large numbers. These northers are not un- 
healthy, but invigorating, and do not cause nor 
aggravate pulmonary diseases. Pneumonia is 
sometimes developed by them, but with half the 
caution that we exercise in the winters of the 
North, its attacks may be avoided. 

As in all new, warm, and highly fertile coun- 
tries, the low rich river bottoms, especially of 
Southern Texas, which are covered with a pro- 
fusion of semi-tropical vegetation, are unhealthy 
to unacclimated persons. The higher lands are 
healthy, if the emigrant make a proper disposi- 
tion of himself, which is too frequently other- 
wise. The atmosphere of the lower Brazos, at 
Richmond and thereabouts, was particularly 
poisonous to the writer. Three days' residence 
there would s^fBce to bring on chills and fever, 



200 FIVE \"EARS IN TEXAS. 

and then a retreat of a week up the country 
seventy-five miles would suppress them. 

San Antonio has been in former years quite a 
favorite resort for consumptive invalids seeking 
the improvement of health. The native Mex- 
icans used to tell a story of its heathfulness that 
has the Yankee smack to it. They said some 
travelers, approaching San Antonio, met three 
disconsolate-looking fellows, who were hasten- 
ing away from the city. They asked them what 
was the matter, and where they were going. 
They replied that they had met with reverses, 
that they wished to die, and were going to some 
place where they co2ild die. 

Yellow fever is imported into the coast towns 
as it is into New York and Philadelphia, but it 
does not originate there. Its ravages, as would 
be expected in such a climate, are sometimes 
severe, but it does not penetrate into the upland 
and hilly regions any more than it does into Ae 
interior of New York or Pennsylvania. 

Times of Planting and Haroesting. — Plowing 
can be done in every month of the year. This 
is an immense advantage by way of economiz- 
ing labor. It is done in January and February 
for the field crops. Early garden vegetables are 
planted in January. In February the prairies 
are green, corn mostly planted, and oats, bar- 



NORTHERN TEXAS. 201 

ley, peas, etc., are sown. In March fresh pas- 
turage is quite abundant, though the old has 
not failed during the winter, and about half the 
corn is planted. In April the balance. Then 
sheep are shorn, and potatoes, peas, and wild 
berries appear in market early in the month. In 
May small fruits are gathered ; apricots ripen 
toward its close. In June corn is ready for 
harvesting, and peaches are ripe. In July first 
cotton-picking comes. We have seen new bales 
of cotton for sale in Galveston on the 4th of 
July. Cotton-picking continues to the close of 
November. December is a plowing, cleaning, 
and picking-up month. 

The above statements refer to average seasons 
in the central and southern latitudes of the State, 
and to the ordinary culture of the main crops. 
Some of them might be grown earlier, and 
would ripen if not planted till months later. 
Most garden vegetables can be planted through- 
out the season, so as to afford a constant repeti- 
tion of them for the table. 

Woo/ Production. — Wool husbandry is a large 
and important interest in Texas. Sheep can be 
grown with high profit for domestic uses on the 
moderately elevated dry sound lands of all parts 
of the State. But the sheep region proper — that 
where the pasturage is best adapted to them, 



202 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

both in summer and winter, where with safety 
and health they can be herded in great flocks, 
and where the land is cheap, and wool can be 
most cheaply grown for exportation — lies in 
Western Texas. It is bounded on the east and 
west by the Guadalupe and Nueces Rivers, and 
so far as yet experimented, north by the Col- 
orado River, say from Bastrop upward. 

South of San Antonio the sheep region Is 
generally level, descending with a moderate 
slope to the coast. But the hilly country, com- 
mencing five or six miles north of San Antonio, 
is regarded par excellence as the sheep region. 
The hills further north become more abrupt, 
with narrower valleys between, and large riveir 
bottoms are reached. The present center of the 
sheep region is Kendall County, appropriateljr 
named after the late George Wilkins Kendall, 
the senior editor of the New Orleans Picayune, 
one of the best conducted and most readable 
newspapers in the United States. He and 
Horace Greeley served their apprenticeship to- 
gether in the office of the Concord (N. H.) 
Statesman. In 1834 he went to New Orleans 
and established the Picayune, and entered on his 
career of success. 

He went to the Mexican war under Ben Mc- 
CuUoch with the Texas Rangers. He died 



NORTHERN TEXAS. 203 

October 22, 1868, at his residence in Kendall 
County, thirty miles north of San Antonio. 

He was the great sheep-farmer and flock-mas- 
ter of the South, the pioneer of that branch of 
husbandry in Texas ; and he did more than all 
others to introduce, foster, and instruct the peo- 
ple in its management in a region so adapted 
by nature to its profitable pursuit. 

Kendall County and a dozen counties around 
it are supplied with streams of water in abun- 
dance, clear, and healthful, and springs, some 
of them, of great volume. On the larger streams 
is a good supply of timber of various kinds. 
There are large groves of post-oak, affording 
mast for innumerable hogs. The hills are gen- 
erally bare of vegetation except grass, which 
consists of varieties of the mesqiiite, probably 
the finest grass for sheep and beeves in the 
world, and quite equal to the white clover of 
the North. It is short, fine, exceedingly palata- 
ble and nutritious — stands drouth well, and 
springs up like magic after every shower. It 
is not entirely killed down by winter, and sub- 
sists flocks throughout the year without the ne- 
cessity of artificial food. It is only necessary 
for the emigrant to secure a homestead, includ- 
ing land enough to raise family supplies from, 
and his stock of horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs, 



204 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

can be pastured on the outlying ranges with no 
expense except for herdsmen and shepherds. 
No rental to any body. Indeed, a single man 
can hire his board, and withc/ut owning or hir- 
ing a foot of land, can keep large flocks and 
herds. And this condition of things must con- 
tinue beyond the lifetime of the present genera- 
tion. 

Texas stretches through ten and a quarter 
degrees of latitude, from twenty-six to thirty-six 
and one-fourth degrees, over seven hundred 
miles. And then it reaches through twelve de- 
grees of longitude, which, on the thirty-second 
parallel, would make the width of the State 
about seven hundred miles. The State govern- 
ment has already laid off one hundred and fifty- 
seven counties, with an area in square miles of 
one hundred and ninety-six thousand two hun- 
dred and ninety-nine. Territory not laid off in 
counties, over one-quarter of the State, includ- 
ing the mountainous part, seventy-two thousand 
three hundred and eighty-five square miles. 
Total square miles in the State, two hundred 
and sixty-eight thousand six hundred and eigh- 
ty-four. The State is between five and six times 
as large as the State of New York, and more 
than three and a half times larger than all New 
England. None of the noted kingdoms of 



NORTHERN TEXAS. 205. 

Europe approach its dimensions except Russia. 
Vast portions of it are still in a state of nature, 
and the balance of it is thinly populated. 

There is no grand climatic or latitudinal di- 
vision of the State but offers its peculiar and 
special inducements to immigrants. Wheat, 
the finest in the world, and other cereals, with 
fruits, etc., of all kinds, in the north, cotton and 
sugar in the southern-central and southeast, 
pine lumber and cypress in the east, and stock 
in the west. 

Southwestern Texas is a very peculiar por- 
tion of the State, and may be geographically 
described as lying between the San Antonio 
River on the east, and the Rio Grande on the 
V/^est, and south and southeast of the road run- 
ning from San Antonio to Eagle Pass on the 
Rio Grande, containing about thirty thousand 
square miles. 

After the establishment of San Antonio, which 
we believe was in the year that Philadelphia 
was settled — called Bexar by the Spaniards and 
Mexicans — many years passed before any set- 
tlements were attempted between that post and 
the garrisons and towns west of the Rio Grande. 
The first in point of time was that of Senor 
Barrego, who in the forepart of the seventeenth 
century established a stock-raising hacienda at 



206 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

a place called "Dolores," on the Rio Grande, 
twenty- five miles below the present site of Lo- 
redo. He received a grant from the King of 
Spain, of seventy leagues of land. This haci- 
enda was afterward destroyed. 

In 1757 the town of Laredo was founded. 
This place was a sort of " Presidio" (Fort) where 
the inhabitants were armed occupants of the soil. 
And it proved the only permanent settlement of 
the Spaniards on the lower Rio Grande. After 
this ranches and haciendas were gradually ex- 
tended over the country, between the Nueces 
River and Rio Grande. And during the first 
quarter of the present century extensive herds 
of horses and cattle, and flocks of sheep, were 
pastured between the two rivers. The remains 
of the stone buildings, water tanks and wells, 
are still to be seen. The troubles attending the 
attempt of the Mexicans to separate from Spain 
invited the savage hordes from the north, which 
had been kept in better subjection under the 
system of Spain than they have ever been since, 
to make raids upon the frontier settlements, 
which caused the country to be nearly vacated 
again. 

The Texas revolution and subsequent border 
warfare gave the finishing touch to this country. 
And when the United States troops under Gen- 



NORTHERN TEXAS. 20/ 

eral Taylor marched from Corpus Christi to the 
Rio Grande, in 1846, not an inhabitant was to 
be found between the Nueces and that river. It 
had the appearance of an immense desert to the 
army, unused as they were to such treeless pam- 
pas. The immense herds of cattle and horses,; 
left to take care of themselves, had become wild, 
and had greatly increased; and as "mustangs" 
grazed over those plains in almost countless 
hosts, it was entirely dangerous for a man to 
cipproach them, particularly on foot, and much 
imore so even on horseback. The old king 
iriustang, and his male subordinates, would first 
(J rive the herd into corral by making a rushing, 
Jieighing circuit around them, and then make a 
fearful dash at the human intruder, striking, 
Ifjcking and biting him to death. 

In 1850 the repopidation of that country fairly 
commenced. The mustangs were killed or 
caught and tamed, and "that so-called'' desert 
has been steadily filling with a hardy and active 
race of stock-raisers. 

As the country now stands, the climate is de- 
cidedly unfavorable to agriculture. And unless 
some plans, on a magnificent scale, can be de- 
vised and executed, by which to irrigate that 
vast and rich country, the main dependence will 
always have to be, as heretofore, on the fl^ocks 



208 FIVE YEARS IN TEXAS. 

and herds. The climate is unseasonable ; but 
not so much for v/ant of rain ; for take the sea- 
sons through, ample supplies of rain fall for all 
purposes, if they only came at the right time, 
and in proper quantities. The planting time is 
from January to May, and tliat is the dry period 
of the year. It often happens that not sufficient 
rain falls during those months to *' wet a pocket 
handkerchief." When it rains it rains. And 
during the other months of the year the torrents 
that fall upon the country will aggregate twenty- 
five to thirty inches. It is not extravagant to 
affirm that if the water could be utilized in some, 
as yet undiscovered way, that country would be 
the finest in the world. The desert (?) would 
" bud and blossom as the rose," in all temperate 
and semi-tropical products. The climate, on 
account of the dryness of the winter and spring, 
is as healthy as could be desired. 

We think something might be done by making 
earth tanks on a large scale, thereby creating 
immense artificial lakes at convenient points, 
and at proper distances, to be used for Irrigating 
purposes when necessary, and thus redeem that 
beautiful country from agricultural waste. It 
can not be done, however, by private capital 
and enterprise, nor by small corporations, but 
might be by heavy ones, under the material en- 



NORTHERN TEXAS. 2O9 

couragement and patronage and aid of the Gen- 
eral and State governments, by money and land 
grants, as to railroad corporations. And doubt- 
less, in time, something of the kind will be done 
when the public good shall demand it. The 
gardens in and around San Antonio, and along 
the river for miles and miles, are irrigated from 
its waters, by little ditches running in all direc- 
tions, from a big ditch or canal, that was origin- 
ally built by the Spanish government when its 
various missions were established along the San 
Antonio valley. But if nothing of the kind 
jihould be done in the future, that country will 
forever remain the finest stock-raising section in 
the United States— the paradise of horses, sheep 
jfind cattle. There is little doubt that the tame 
cattle herds of to-day outnumber the wild ones 
-i)f half a century ago. And one day south- 
western Texas will export half a million of 
beeves yearly. 
14 



V 



M 




OLD LETTERS. 



CANTO I. 

tOMETIMES old letters have the strangest things 
Kecorded on the worn and sallow page : 
The writing, too, has neither head nor wings, 
But one would think that insects for an age 
Had wip'd their tiny feet where black ink clings, 
Regardless of the ancient scribbling sage, 
"Whose quill, one pointed and one feather'd end, 
Had trail'd away his thoughts to absent friend. 

But who can be sure, they're any more queer 
Than those we moderns hast'ly pen to-day ; 
E'en tho' their marks so odd and strange appear, 
That as we read the mind doth halt and stay 
Until the brain hath got a little clear, 
In order, as we let its powers play, 
We well can solve what all the scribblings mean, 
'Tis so at six, or sev'n, or at sixteen. 

The language, too, is no more queer and strange. 
As thought doth spring and file along on thought, 
And spirits meet in pleasant interchange 
Of fancies told, or fancies only caught ; 

(213) 



214 OLD LETTERS. 

And scarcely caught at that in his small range, 
As some poor scribbler has his fabric wrought, 
And in the wretched scraping swiftly tells 
What feeling urges — what his bosom swells. 

Those who would have this sweetest priv'lege cease, 
Must ingrate be in senses more than one ; 
Nor dwell at home, or anywhere in peace, 
Though parent, friend, daughter, or absent son, 
Such name 'twere well enough they should release; 
Indeed, 'twere well it never had begun, 
If cold neglect in writing they do show, 
No matter if the mails go swift or slow. 

But some there are who never can be made 
To answer letters until ages roll 
Almost away, or letters are mislaid, 
Or till an absent, good, and loving soul. 
Full well may think the friendly hand has stay'd, 
Or that the troubled fates may have control. 
Or illness may — or even worse, one's doubts — ■ 
Our friend is gone away, or else in pouts. 

And yet, most happy one and all should be, 

If but allow'd to bring our distant friends 

So near that, they may feel and truly see 

Each impulse of the heart, and as it blends, 

Feel truly certain that we have the key 

Which opens friendship's valve, and makes amends 

For many sad, unkind, and ugly things, 

That daily life with all its worry brings. 

One friend I've kad for many steady years. 
Who, though she lives a thousand miles away. 
Comes ever with her joys, her hopes and fears; 
Before me every feeling doth she lay, 



OLD LETTEES. 2 IS 

Which stirs my own to mingle with her tears, 
And ev'ry throbbing of my heart doth stay 
For her, till all she feels, or thinks, or knows, 
Takes root in my own breast, and there it grows. 

She lives in icy — I in Southern clime : 

And e'en as the bright-eyed daughters of the South, 

She loves this land — so many years now mine ; 

Nor deems its rainy seasons, or its drouth 

Objectionable, or so out of time. 

If Mail sacks but unseal their widened mouth, 

And bring her freshly posted speedy news 

From me and mine, where fall the Southern dews. 

When fierce war raged, and battle strife ran high, 

She o'er the horrid din and clamor came — 

In spirit came — and heav'd a weary sigh I 

We look'd together on the bloody plain, 

Until our crying souls no more could cry. 

As saw we our own braves' expiring pain ; 

" Father, forgive " this wild, this raging crew, 

" For " in their strife " they know not what they do I* 

So oft, when Cynth'a pale, rode high at night, 
And smiled thro', or o'er a rift of clouds, 
She's told me of its Deauty and pure light. 
That whitens air, like newly coffined shrouds, 
And makes the snows so flaky, keen and bright. 
While skaters skim-the icy lakes in crowds. 
And she, with wishing, longing heart, once more 
Would come, or bring me to the ice-bound shore. 

In weariness of heart, the mind so dwells 
On all its windings thro' the pleasant past, 
Its smooth calm seas, and undulating swells. 
Its earnest aims in solemn grandeur cast, 



2l6 OLD LETTERS. 

Leaves impress on our souls, which merely tells 
Of evanescent things that can not last ; 
And e'en tho' painful, held with deep regret, 
Unwillingly would we ever forget. 

This is a long and quite extended reach, 
Of that begun an hour or two ago ; 
And looks more like a set or settled speech, 
Than like the stream down which old letters flow : 
And so, dear reader, thro' the lengthen'd breach, 
If so you please, we'll travel rather slow, 
And take as we proceed — to make amends — 
Some letter missives from our absent friends. 

The first of friendly sort, we point you to, 
By Lewis, an ally of the " lost cause," 
Was penn'd at night, in 1862, 
When subject of Confed'rate army laws, 
And flew the show'ring deadly bullets,flew 
With little intermission — scarce a pause ; 
And when men bravelyfought, with might and main. 
To gain their independence — but in vain. 

The letter said — 'twas not a hasty note — 
" This now to you, may prove farewell, in fint ; 
" We're all equipped, and waiting for the boat, 
That leaves her moorings somewhere close to nine, 
Wliich soon is here — and then afloat, afloat, 
And by the morning sun's first blushing shine. 
We'll wear the victor's glorious laurel wreath. 
Or else be shrouded in the arms of death ! 

" I know, good friend, this strain must give you pain ; 
In carelessness I would not take a step; 
And taking this, if counted with the slain. 
Poor mother's tears, her pillow oft will wet 



OLD LETTERS. 21^ 

For me I know — whom she'll ne'er meet again ; 
Yet shall I hope, before the next sunset, 
That she, alike yourself, may gladly tell. 
There's One above, who doeth all things well. 

" There are some things to jot down here, that I 
Would kindly ask, my dearest friend, of you. 
If I am hors de combat plac'd, and die, 
Or battle's lost or gained — here's my adieu, 
But please this letter send — or please to try — 
My feelings scarcely can I now subdue. 
While fate obstruent says, a few hours more 
May transport all to an unbroken shore. 

"Should fickle fortune frown, and leave me fall 

Into unfriendly and blood-greedy hands, 

'Twill be like being — if I be at all — 

In hands next like to those of savage bands. 

It doth not matter on this earthly ball, 

So much where one may be, or what breeze fans. 

The unhappy casualties the post will cite, 

Ere one more sun has settled into night. 

"Dear Charley's going too — the noble boy — 
She's sad to see him with the warring host. 
His joyous look, 'tis a pity to destroy ; 
A thousand pities more his life were lost. 
But she knows well, naught but the main decoy, 
Could take him thus from her, he loves the most. 
God grant him life — a long and happy life. 
And one with blessings, free from battle's strife. 

"And now, kind friend, I say a sad good-by ; 
The rolling drum doth call us to repair — 
Under the dull, though quiet darken'd sky, 
That may so soon be turn'd to lurid glare, 



2lS OLD LETTERS. 

As cannons play, and iron missels fly — 
To duty — parcel'd out to each a share : 
But none of us can tell the sad finale : 
And now again I say, good-by, farewell !" 

And thus the letter ended — in a strain, 

That led beloved ones at home to think, 

If war should spare, that he would speak again ; 

But give us news from which the heart would shrink, 

For so is all that comes from battle plain. 

Where death holds ev'ry dear one on his brink. 

Such is the fate of war — the olden story. 

Where men invest their lives in search of glory. 

And shall I tell, how with her hand in mine, 
Poor Mary sat, and leaned upon my breast; 
And how her tears fell down on ev'ry line ; 
And how, before the morning sun's first shine, 
Her weary form was out, and loosely dress'd ; 
And how she pac'd the room the live long day, 
Till ev'ning light had lost its latest ray ! 

Poor child ! the premonition seemed to be. 
That many trials were in store for her, 
Altho' their unveil'd form she could not see ; 
The thought brouglit in her eyes a fi'ry blue: 
O, for some hope to which her heart could flee ! 
Some healing balm the stony fates would stir ! 
But ere the week had told its length'ning round 
The secret of her sick'ning fears was found. 

Suspended hope for three long days— then came 

The welcome letter from our hero-friend ; 

He was alive — unhurt, and just the same. 

And humbly thanked high heav'n for such an end ; 

But ah ! how many, maay could he name, 



OLD LETTERS. SIQ 

Who would, with his, their own dear voices blend 

No more along the lines of coming years; 

And to their friends could nothing leave — but tears. 

" O ! would, the feelings which my bosom fiU'd," 
He said, "as stiil we glided down tlxe tide, 
And all around in nature calm and still'd — 
I could portray — I felt I could have died I 
No matter then, if soon I sliould be killed; 
If all I lov'd, and ev'rytliing beside. 
Should leave this beautiful, enchaining world, 
And into death's cold, cruel arms be hurl'd ! 

" No sound was heard till late at night. The moon 
Then rose, and softly also rose the wind, 
And swept away across the low lag )on, 
Where battle soon would rage a very fiend, 
And o'er the next day's fair and'glo.ving noon ; 
And, raging in its lion anger, find 
Its grim and ugly den of horrors filTd 
With precious blood terrific strife had spill'd. 

"And Charley" — Thus this sad'ning part began — 
" Is now among the noble ones laic}' low ; 
Grim death will ne'er hew down a better man; 
And we, his friends, a better crave to know. 
Horror I I saw his life-blood as it ran. 
And then I thought — for Mary what a blow ! 
'Twill rend and crush her young and grieving heart I 
So good — and oh, how sad that thus they part ! 

He near the gunwale bravely — manly stood. 
When o'er the waters came the murd'rous shell, 
And with four comrades, swept him down in blood ; 
They early in the carnage quickly fell ; 
He rais'd his head from midst the oozing flood, 



520 OLD LETTERS. 

And calmly listened to the changing knell ; 
Then eyeing me, he said," '' Come Louis, come — 
My life ebbs fast — I'll soon be going home ' 

"Will you to Mary my last token bring, 

And promise, ere my eyes are sealed in death, 

To carry her this tiny diamond ring ; 

And tell her then, that at my latest breath, 

I'm thinking of the songs she used to sing ; 

And also tell her of my holy faith 

In her truth and her pure, undying love ; 

Which can be seal'd but in the world above? 

" And have my body carried back to where 

The brotliers, in the holy mystic ties. 

Will gather in the Lodge Avith solemn prayer, 

Before 'tis laid beneath the open skies. 

'Twill do me good to know I'm sleeping there; 

Ah, see ! grim darkness comes ! the hour how flies I 

Some other things there are, I wish'd to say. 

But too late now ! night — home — Mary — 'tis day 1" 

"I promis'd all — then gently laid his head, 
First on a knapsack, then upon my arm ; 
Once more he op'd his eyes, and smiling, said, 
'Thanks, Lew — I'll soon be far from war's alarm.' 
Once more he press'd my hand, and then was dead I 
I laid him down — no fear of coming harm, 
For none could pain that cold and lifeless form ; 
Now all was past — let battles rage and storm. 

"Of more than this, I've scarcely time to speak ; 
You'll find reports when papers come with news ; 
E'en yet, I seem to hear the cannon's shriek, 
As horrid forth their belching thunder spews, 
In vengeance dire and most terrific wreak, 



OLD LETTERS. 221 

And covers friend and foe with death-damp dews ! 
How sinks and quails the heart at the dread sight, 
When war turns fairest day to blackest night. 

"The fun'ral pageantry — the solemn toll, 
The cortege, like a serpent, winding through, 
The muffled drum's long-sounding gloomy roll, 
The death corrode that o'er the senses grew. 
Or sick'ning chill which o'er one's spirit stole, 
The dead march tap — they all seem still in view — 
'Twas thus they bore him to the silent bourne. 
From whence, in old earifh form, he'll ne'er return. 

" All these and more — the measur'd tread 
Of good, brave men, who slowly wound along 
With his remains, to their last resting place — 
I scarce can realize that he is gone, 
And that his ibrm lies mold'ring with the dead ; 
That we're no more to hear his joyous song — 
I say, all these are trooping through my mind, 
Like ghostly phantoms of some awful kind. 

"I'd ask, before this missive I do close, 
Which now has grown to an unusual size, 
Tho' half is still unwritten, heaven knows — 
That you will comfort Mary, when her eyes 
Are blinded with sore weeping o'er the woes, 
That will wring out her soul in deep well-cries, 
And rend in sorrowing weariness her breast, 
Which now scarce anything can soothe to rest. 

" Yet be a comfort and a friendly stay, 
And bid her grapple with her fate — not grieve, 
Please try to soothe the blinding tears away, 
Though little now can sorrow much relieve, 
Or shed of jo^ or bliss a single ray. 



222 OLD LETTERS. 

Ah ! tell her how my soul is double brave, 
Since't feels the spirit touch of Charley's soul; 
But thoughts are quite beyond my word control. 

"A few more items yet, and I have done. 

I would the warmest gratitude express, 

And obligations deep I owe to one — 

Whose heart is with her friends in their distress, 

And when their joys come on, exceed her none, 

In spontanieties, to smile or bless — 

To you, Lottie — who disappointments share, 

All that your tender prompting well can bear. 

" And now, good friend, I feel I'm badly needing 

A little respite from the past few days. 

Whose strange events have set a canker feeding 

Within my breast, where wooing quiet stays ; 

But now, at times, I feel it must be bleeding, 

My very brain is in a dizzy haze 

Of horrid things that in succession fly 

Before my eyes. Once more, dear friend, good-by. 



OLD LETTERS. 223 



CANTO IL 

'F there be anything that is heartrending, 
It is when called upon to yield our cheer 
To those whose joys have found a sudden ending, 
Indeed the task's a hopeless one — that's clear — 
To attempt to improve upon or save by mending. 
As well essay to move a planet from its sphere, 
As talk to any one whose real sorrow 
Has pass'd the line where he was wont to borrow. 

I've tried it oft, and given o'er the task ; 
And hopeful too as any woman that e'er tried, 
Or man either, e'en though he wore the mask^ 
That Satan wore to set our mother Eve beside 
Herself enough to think, and curious ask, 
Why she was ever made, or ever tied 
Upon this curious revolving ball. 
And where her crazy actions brought " the fall." 

That was the fearful thing in nature's God — 
The giving to that simple child the power 
To tread where his own mighty footstops trod I 
The gloomy clouds o'er all mankind since low'r, 
And lay their stubborn heads beneath the sod ! 
His grandchild might have bloom'd supernal flow'r, 
Of all the grand and awful fabrication, 
Nor need redemption nor regeneration, 



224 OLD LETTERS. 

Perhaps such questions we've no right to put, 

Unto the Framer of the Universe ; 

To our inquis'tiveneness his doors are shut, 

On dit — and recommended well of course, 

By the theologist in pious hut, 

"With clearing small around — or what is worse, 

He lives beyond where busy thoughts do center, 

And so beyond the pale where gossips enter. 

But then theology is not the theme 
To claim my present labor or my time. 
We'll then retire to Mary's broken dream ; 
Although the task is hard, in changing rhyme, 
To waft her smoothly down life's whirling stream, 
And land her safe in any pleasant clime, 
"When knowing that her dearest hopes have pal'd, 
And every sweet anticipation fail'd. 

My muse has sung the task, a hopeless one. 

To offer balm to one in woe not found ; 

Or being found, it meets a chrDnic tone. 

To raise the sadden'd brow when sorrow crown'd, 

Is near a failure ere the task's begun ; 

'Tis throwing straws to one already drown'd ; 

The light frail things are in a feeble clasp, 

And serve no other purpose than to grasp. 

You may try this, or that, or other thing. 
And find each move is not responsive met, 
Except to prove abortive, and to. fling 
Your kindest purpose back, .from efforts set 
In bounds of common sense — another -ring, 
Within whose com pass many chafe and fret. 
To try to lead a moody woful mind — 
*Tis but a task where blind must lead the blind. 



OLD LETTERS. 22 5 

"When fate— the dark-brow'd Mistress— b-s her hand 

With heavy weight upon a mortal wight, 

It is as if King Terror's deadly wand 

Had swept along, and wither' d left and right; 

Or like one's bark, left on a sullen strand, 

AVhere soundless waters rise in fury's might, 

Kock on and on, in sullen moaning clash. 

Unmindful of the human wrecks they dash. 

And Mary — still I hear her stifled moan. 
As vainly the letter she tried to read, 
The anguish of her low, distressful groan, 
Would cause a heart of adamant to bleed. 
It seem'd her brain were like a flaming stone ; 
Her heart a torn and bent and broken reed ; 
And such a look of wan and woeful pain ! 
God grant me such a likeness ne'er again 

Next day they bore her to her city home, 
With life enough scarce left,her frame to bear; 
All had been swept away like wild sea foam. 
And nothing left but a fond mother's care, 
To nurse away the fever which had come ; 
A fit attendant of her woes, and share — 
A heated languor with sufficient breath 
To hold her just within the porch of death. 



226 OLD LETTERS. 



J. 



CAUTO III. 

UT turn we now to other scenes than these, 
At least awhile, and take a cheerful look, 
As trav'ler looks from sand to greenleaf trees, 
And 'neatli the shade where runs the babbling brook, 
Who doffs his hat to the refreshing breeze, 
And reading nature as a living book, 
He feels her smiling, in its joyous glim, 
Has such a sweet affiuity for him. 

Life should not be all terrors — nor its charms 
Be life-long raptures, or unending songs; 
When botli are blended, each alike disarms; 
Nor constant good nor ill, alone belongs 
To lil'e — one only brings us moral harms. 
And on our poor humanity, gi-eat wrongs ; 
For by tlie constant sameness would man's deeds 
Defeat all progress that to greatness leads. 

So from the gloomy picture drawn above. 
We'll turn away and find a brighter side. 
Let not the drooping Mary die of love, 
As many storied ones have lov'd and died ; 
Nor solitaire in heart forever rove ; 
But bid her all life's changes firm abide ; 
Her ca^e is hom'opathic, we discover— 
Similia similibus curant&r. 



OLD LETTERS. 22/ 

Months came and went, and still she linger'd on, 
At home by the sea. Its solitary shore, 
"Was travers'd often by her step alone; 
Somehow the dark sea's surging, sullen roar, 
Brought quietude, when elsewhere she found none ; 
Her daily lone walks tliere were many score. 
Philosoijhy no pedagogue can teach 
Is sometimes found upon a lonely beach. 

Tne saddest, yet the sweetest melancholy. 
Inspires a feeble, slow reviving frame, 
If but allow 'd to steal from heartless folly. 
Away from all that bears the social name ; 
And 'neath the spreading evergreen sea-holly, 
Check down the fires of disappointment's flame ; 
And thereby give the thoughts a purer turn. 
And cool the heated caldron where they burn. 

In such a state, the bubbles we pursue 
Seem but the vaunt of sickly strength and pride; 
We're on our way, a weary wand'ring through. 
With fallen hopes flung losely on the tide 
Of morbid aims — whose almost crying hue 
Is pencil'd by dull care. Nor can we hide 
The care-worn hues with careful toilet hands ; 
Tlie glass of life drops slow, but sure, the sands. 

The tameless passions frequent in the breast, 

Are like the molten waves of Etna's fire ; 

Knowing nor years, nor months, nor weeks of rest — 

Tho' some there are to better things aspire — 

Impulses whatsoe'er, not one repress'd; 

Their every song's a ceaseless never tire, 

And no reflection in its secret springs. 

On what demands it 'mid a thousand things. 



228 OLD LETTERS. 

Her letters oft were filTd with moaning words, 
Whose sadden'd tone inspir'd one's heart with awe ; 
E'en her description of sweet singing birds 
Did moan — and so did all she heard and saw. 
Home-sheltered — like the flock the shepherd herds — 
Where she would fain from prying eyes withdraw, 
There dead monotony did reign and sigh, 
fhat tells how near the fount of tears is dry. 

And yet me thought her grief had soften'd down 

More in that calm inertia — settled state — 

Whose features wore, nor smile, nor cheer, nor frown i 

A kind of understanding with Dame Fate, 

That wreathing thus her brow with sorrow's crown, 

Were far less sad than when 'twere wrought too late 

To wear its jagging ugl^'^ thorns, and give 

A single farthing for such life to live. 

At length news came — how Arthur Wildbent had 
So kindly driven her along the strand; 
And air-improv'd, it made us all so glad. 
That la.st reunion, while the Melrose Band 
Discoursed sweet music, she had been less sad; 
That once she gam'd croquet with cheerful hand. 
And beat — but beat old Melancholy better. 
And hence she boasted of it in her letter. 

She frequent made the balmy ev'ning drive 
Adown the beach, so like a sanded floor; 
Where white-capp'd waves, that seem'd almost alive, 
Did chase each other to the shining shore. 
Buzzing like restless bees within the hive; 
Or, like the porpoise, rolling by the score, 
Tho' gathering nothing in their briny splash, 
Except tlie wat'ry pearls to shore they dash. 



OLD LETTERS. 229 

'Tis true, she always miss'd good Charley when, 
The ev'ning throngs were wont to congregate — 
The greatest press was on her spirits then — 
Howe'er they whirl'd in dance, or stood, or sat, 
Not one amid the gallant crowd of men, 
Could for his absence ever compensate, 1 

Unless it might be Lewis — who to-day 
Keminded her of him who'd pass'd away. 

Life had its pleasures, beauty had thp world; 
Tho' fewest of them had been brought to bear 
Upon a destiny like hers, so furl'd ; 
Scarce naught of either could be painted there ; 
All romance so remotely had been hurl'd, 
She lik'd some work of lonely quiet, where 
By somber daylight, or by flick'ring taper. 
Her inburst feelings she could note on paper. 

Life's neiv sensations are but few and precious — 
Thus speaks some writer of some wondrous cave ; 
It may be Mammoth, with its caverns spacious; 
Whose floors, obliv'ous, Leth'an waters lave ; 
And when we wander thro' them, strange refresh us; 
Most surely do, if we but catcli and save, 
For rarest of all rare delicious dishes, 
A string full of the tiny eyeless fishes. 

But where find we in life, sensations new? 
Such as have never yet been told, we mean. 
Of Such, me thinks indeed, the number's few; 
And may not reach one even in a dream. 
'Tis true, we often all the old renew. 
Which to one's own sensations new may seem ; 
And yet they but repeat — so we believe — 
All those once told by Adam to his Eve. 



230 OLD LETTERS. 

Yes, so far told, as then it could be done, 

In the beginning time of this world's ways — 

Thro' which their course to pick, they'd just begun- 

But not express'd in such poetic lays, 

As down the rippling tide of language run 

The thought and feeling of the later days; 

And raore's the pity — since their employment 

Seems but a very circumscribed enjoyment. 

" 'Tis now two years since Charley pass'd away," 
She wrote, "and I have liv'd for him as true 
As any one who keeps her wedding day ; 
'Till lately I have somewhat chang'd my view ; 
'Tis not so well for one to mourn alway ; 
The news, sweet friend, the news I'll break to you— 
Unless this letter meet with a miscarriage — 
And own to you, again I think of marriage. 

"And you may guess my choice, the favor'd one; 
He's more like him than any I have met, 
Indeed, than any I have ever known ; 
And this is why my heart is on him set; 
I can not always pass ray life alone. 
The choice I feel that I shall ne'er regret ; 
You know him well, and know I never can — 
Search o'er the earth — secure a better man. 

"Somehow I feel myself so sadly chang'd, 
I'm scarce the same you knew in days of yore; 
My sorrow hath so much my mind derang d, 
Instead of twenty years, I feel fourscore. 
From youthful pleasures I'm so far estrang'd, 
Myself doth seem a matron grave, and hoar 
With silvered front, and seems a grave surprise, 
That I'm not trying to repair my eyes. 



OLD LETTERS. 



231 



" I aim to do my dnty as I ought, 

And of his life be crowning joy and bliss, 

That Lew may realize how ev'ry thought, 

From wedding day to death, shall be all his; 

And ev'ry purpose shall be truly taught. 

That wifely love should point alone to this; 

So in our union we may find repair 

For all the sorrows both have had to bear." 




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